New product Wednesday, in Dallas stores: Odwalla Serious Focus

by Teresa Gubbins

It contains ginseng and green tea.

Odwalla Serious Focus is so new, it's not even listed on the company's Web site yet. It's a cousin to the recent new product Serious Energy, with "Serious" clearly some kind of secret code for "nutraceutical additive" (Nutraceutical: any substance that is a food or a part of a food and provides medical or health benefits).

In the case of Serious Focus, the magic ingredients are green tea and ginseng extract, along with the usual fruit juices. (Full list: apple juice, water, cane juice, raspberry puree, dark sweet cherry puree, mango puree, green tea, purple carrot, chokeberry, black currant, lemon, elderberry, hibiscus, blueberry, apple and ginseng extract, and citric acid.)

It's said that ginseng can modestly improve thinking or learning. Odwalla hearts ginseng; it had a ginseng drink back in 1996, that it came right out and called ginseng. That transparency may be admirable but when it comes to "kooky" ingredients like ginseng, some people really don't wanna know. Score one for the marketing people here, who've come up with a dumbed-down title. Urgh. Me want focus.

As for its effectiveness, it mostly made me feel more awake, and maybe more talkative. But I drank it before I went to the gym on Saturday. A better testing ground might've been to drink a bottle before I started writing this little item because it's taking forever to finish. Hey look, there's a squirrel in the front yard. Hmm, do I need a snack?

Meanwhile, consider this a warning: Odwalla's goals for 2008 include -- and here's some jargon for ya -- "expanding usage occasions". Hmf, usage occasions? "Most of our beverages are consumed before lunch," says a company spokesman.

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