The typical breakdown of ingredients is as follows.

Water, sucrose, glucose, maltodextrin, acidity regulators (citric acid, sodium citrate), sodium chloride, natural flavour, preservative (202, 211), colour.

Water is in there for obvious reasons, R-Line is a syrup and it needs water to dissolve all the ingredients.

By law, all electrolyte drinks in NZ and Australia must contain approximately between 5-10% carbohydrates which is aligned with most of the guidance out there on hydration drinks. There is some guidance that suggests 4-8% is more suitable, but that range is fairly well accepted. Out of the carbohydrates that are available for use, we needed a combination of both glucose and fructose in the product to ensure they are multiple transportable carbohydrates, and the only options to get the fructose in there is via pure fructose, which doesn’t taste great, or sucrose, which breaks down into glucose and fructose (and tastes better). That is why sucrose becomes the biggest carb.

To balance out the total carb content, sweetness and glucose to fructose ratio, we need to add both glucose (aka dextrose) and maltodextrin.

Maltodextrin is just corn starch that has been partially broken down.

Next up are the acidity regulators 330 and 331 aka citric acid and sodium citrate. The citric acid is in there for mainly for taste, but it also helps with keeping the product shelf stable. Without the citric acid in there, yeasts could grow and no one wants boozy sports drink (or do they???)

The sodium citrate balances and buffers the citric acid, as well as providing some bonus sodium without a stong salty taste.

The sodium chloride is just plain table salt. It literally comes from about 500 meters away from our factory at Dominion salt, who have a mountain of the stuff which I though was the snow when I was a kid.

Each variant has a different flavour/essence added to it. These are all natural and manufactured here in New Zealand.

We add a little preservative, but because R-Line is a 10x concentrate, we end up needing 10x less than we are allowed (its actually quite a bit less than this).

If you aren’t into colours, we do the whole range of R-Line Electrolyte Drink in colourfree options.

We add some colour to some of our flavour options. These are tartrazine, sunset orange, brilliant blue and ponceau. We have tried natural colours in the past but they fade a little too quickly and don’t really work. The colours are optimised for the 10x concentrate, so in the ready to drink product, the colours are very faint.

This is a very tough question to answer. Since the mid 90’s there have been a few guidance documents that have been released by various organisations, and they don’t always agree with each other.

We have created a calculator which incorporates some of the best ideas on how much to use, you can find it here – R-Line Calculator.

Most sports drink guidance ranges down to 4% carbs, and R-Line is around 6.5%, so watering it down a little should keep it well within this range if you feel that it suits your needs better. R-Line is very high in electrolyte content, so even when watered down a little, the electrolyte content remains high.

Mixing up R-Line a little weaker than recommended is generally OK, but we don’t recommend going any higher. This is because the electrolyte content is already high, so going higher pushes it into a range that probably doesn’t taste too good.

In NZ and Australia, the Food Standards Code defines electrolyte drinks as requiring more than 10mmol sodium, and between 5-10% carbs. R-Line Electrolyte Drink, and R-Line Activity drink both fit into this definition.

R-Line has just short of 40mmol sodium which puts us at the higher end of the range for sodium content. There is no such things as the perfect sport drink; different people respond differently. During the formulation period, the Professor that was advising us was very adamant that if we wanted a technically superior product to what is currently offered on the market, we should aim for high sodium, not low.

As far as carbs go, R-Line is quite middle of the range. Not too high, not too low, just right we think at 6.5%.

R-Line Electrolyte Drink is for sports, R-Line Activity Drink is for workplace hydration and activity that is lower intensity than sports. 

R-Line Activity Drink has a few less carbs than R-Line Electrolyte Drink. This is because people who are working hard in hot environments are typically burning less calories than people who are exercising.

R-Line Activity Drink also has a slightly lower level of total electrolytes.