How to make a billion from energy drinks (and that’s no Bull)

Let’s hope Tom Harrington, CEO of the Primo Water Corporation, is reading this (please tap him on the shoulder, observing Covid precautions, if he isn’t), because this is his lucky day: if he plays his cards right, he could be on the way to another billion before breakfast.

That’s because he presides over a business that’s already making a fortune from energy drinks (I believe it euphemistically calls them “stimulation drinks”) and, at the stroke of a pen, it could be making another fortune from millions of people who wouldn’t be seen dead drinking one - or fear, entirely erroneously and preposterously, that they might end up dead if they did.

Opinion is split on energy drinks: millions of people absolutely adore them, while others want to ban them in schools, ration them, or wrest them from the hands of anyone who appears to be enjoying them.

I happen to love them - or, to be more specific, I love Emerge, the zero-calorie energy drink made by Mr Harrington and his colleagues.

Second only to fine Champagne, it’s by far and away my favourite drink: non-alcoholic, sparkling, and with a fantastically fruity, yet-to-be-equalled taste.

But it’s an energy drink.

I don’t wish to drink energy drinks, and my doctors and life-insurance underwriters don’t want me to drink them either.

They didn’t turn a hair at the thought of me aerobatic wingwalking, in which I stand on the top wing of a vintage Boeing Stearman bi-plane, thousands of feet up, as it climbs, dives, barrel-rolls, stall-turns and loops the loop, but they thought having four cans of energy drink a day would be pushing my luck too far.

Nevertheless, I still have the occasional can of Emerge and drain every last drop, savouring the smell from the air left inside, and wish I could drink them as freely as I’d like.

But I drink Emerge not because it’s an energy drink, but despite it.

Which makes me wonder why Mr Harrington doesn’t make a version that’s exactly the same in every single respect, but minus the ingredients that make it an energy or stimulation drink?

I’m not a food scientist or a nutritional expert, nor am I privy to the secrets of Mr Harrington’s product’s recipe, but I’m pretty sure Emerge doesn’t derive its flavour from the energy-giving ingredients - so, as Mr Harrington and his colleagues have already formulated the most wonderful flavour I’ve come across in my 60 years, it shouldn’t be too much of a faff to stick it into cans with a different label and without the stimulation bits.

He could even make a virtue of it and label it as the world’s first non-energy drink, though he might not want to, of course.

Perhaps Primo Water Corporation has enough billions already. But if he doesn’t, someone else will - and it’s a potentially massive market around the world, just sitting there for the taking.

One of his rivals’ products claims to give us wings and indeed makes enough money to be able to sponsor Formula One teams, air races and telegenic challenges.

Its top people will be reading this, if only to see what Mr Harrington is up to and in case there’s the slightest opportunity to make him see Red, yet so will others who’d love to break into the lucrative market and disrupt it.

So will a non-energy energy drink emerge, so to speak, as the next big thing?

Will Mr Harrington be the one to make the billion from it?

Or will you, the person reading this, have the energy and the inclination to beat him to it?

If he does, or you do instead, I’ll drink it by the crateful and be very, very grateful.

• If you like this - or, for that matter, think it’s utter nonsense - please share it. Better still, try beating Mr Harrington to that billion. Keep reading Vocal for more unsolicited business tips from me, Jon McKnight.