Y Water? Why Not?

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What's more, value-added drinks are booming as increasingly health-conscious consumers seek food and drinks that supposedly do more than satisfy hunger or quench a thirst. Wholesale sales of single-serve value-added drinks soared to $1.5 billion in 2006, from $114 million in 2001, according to Beverage Marketing.

Design for Kids

Arndt turned to Béhar of San Francisco design consultancy Fuseproject for bottle design and branding. Out went Arndt's original name for the drink, Smartkids, which was considered too nerdy. Béhar's team devised Y Water's intertwined name and bottle, based on the concept of a stable, symmetrical bottle that would incorporate a sense of play and riff off the questions kids often ask: "why" and "why not?" The design, explains Béhar, who is an investor in the $1 million Y Water startup, "is about the process of turning food or drink into a game, and a disposal product into a reusable one. And asking questions. These are all parts of a kid's personality."

Béhar wanted to accomplish more than simply downsizing a big adult bottle. "We wanted to get away from that and put our energy into the product and the packaging," he says. Béhar hopes that consuming Y Water and playing with the packaging will provide "a fun lesson about why you should never discard a plastic bottle." Of course, it doesn't hurt that to get the most fun from the toy requires buying more than one bottle.

But will kids like the taste? Arndt devised flavors with ingredients that target different parts of the body: bones, muscles, the brain, and the immune system. For example, Y Bone water has a shot of calcium and vitamins mixed with organic black carrot juice, banana, strawberry, and a touch of spearmint oil. Y Brain water features zinc, rosemary, lemon, and caramel. Arndt describes the flavors as "compelling and sophisticated" and says they passed a crucial test market—his kids and their friends.

Bottle labels, designed by ad agency Kastner & Partner in Los Angeles, include whimsical, childlike drawings and irreverent tag lines: for Y Bone water, there is a skeleton and the line, "because you don't want your skeleton walking out on you." Y Muscle water has an octopus in high boots, and encourages kids to drink it "because you never know who's going to challenge you to a wrestling match."

Health Benefits?

But because Y Water also contains sugar cane juice, food industry critics like Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and public health at New York University, are skeptical about its overall nutritional benefits. "While it's surely better than a sugary soft drink, think of it as calcium-enriched liquid candy," says Nestle, a fierce opponent of food marketing to kids, about Y Bone water. As for the zinc in Y Brain water: "The idea that you will stimulate the brain with one nutrient makes no sense. Throwing in a little zinc won't make a difference unless a kid is zinc deficient." And in that case, she adds, "they can take pediatric vitamins."

Arndt argues that Y Water is meant to be a part of healthy balanced daily nutrition—not a replacement—and that the benefits of the added minerals are well-documented. "We really hope our drinks are not the only source of vitamins and minerals in the daily diet of a child," he says, noting that many children don't get the adequate amount. As for sugar, Arndt says: "I'd rather give them a tolerable level of sweetness as an incentive to drink enough than offer them only water that they don't like."

Beverage Marketing's Hemphill says Y Water has potential because it addresses issues such as health and wellness and "the green aspect" at a time when the bottled-water industry is under attack for being environmentally irresponsible. (Y Water's plastic bottle scores points not just because it's intended to be reused within the home but is also fully recyclable.)

Béhar, who has banned bottled water from his office, says that ideally, fountains and the tap would be the best way to get water. But, he says of the Y Water bottle, "if you want to deliver a natural beverage with a function, then you need some kind of carrier, and this provides a smarter solution."

Ernest Beck spent almost a decade as a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Budapest and London. After leaving the Journal in 2002, he became a freelance contributor to numerous publications including the New York Times, Metropolitan Home, and SmallBiz. He is the editor of the book Brancusi's Endless Column about a mysterious sculpture in Romania (Scala, 2007).