What Is Functional Soda?

We picked up a clean signal in the Rising Trends database last month. The umbrella term "functional soda" went from 260 monthly searches in April 2025 to 22,200 in February 2026, the same month PepsiCo closed its $1.95 billion acquisition of Poppi. The term then settled at 6,600 in March, which is still 25x its level a year earlier.

Below we explain what functional soda actually is, the market data behind the boom, the brands and the deals that made it a billion-dollar category, the science of the prebiotic claims, and what the broader Amazon ecosystem tells us about where consumer demand is migrating next.

Let's get into it.

The signal: what the Rising Trends data shows

Here is the search volume for "functional soda" over the past 12 months.

That February 2026 spike maps almost exactly to the PepsiCo-Poppi acquisition coverage cycle. The sharper signal is that the post-spike baseline of 6,600 monthly searches is roughly 25x the April 2025 level, which suggests the term has been pulled into the mainstream vocabulary as a permanent category descriptor, not just a news cycle.

The functional soda search term sits inside a much larger ecosystem of related queries. Here is what that ecosystem looks like in our database.

The hierarchy matters. Brand names lead (Olipop at 165K, Poppi at 135K). Then comes the category description (prebiotic soda at 135K). The umbrella concept term (functional soda) is the smallest of the bunch but the fastest-growing. Historically, that progression (brands first, category description second, umbrella term last) is the consumer attention sequence that precedes mass-market category maturity.

What functional soda actually is

A functional soda is a sparkling, low-calorie beverage fortified with active functional ingredients, most commonly prebiotic fibers, but also probiotics, adaptogens, vitamins, or electrolytes. The category positions itself as the next generation of soda. Not "diet" (which competes on what is removed) but "functional" (which competes on what is added).

The two leading formulas illustrate the category. Poppi combines sparkling water, apple cider vinegar, fruit juice, and agave inulin (a prebiotic fiber) with roughly 5g of sugar per can. Olipop uses a proprietary blend of prebiotic fibers from cassava root, chicory root, and Jerusalem artichoke, delivering around 9g of fiber and 2 to 5g of sugar per can.

Both products are positioned around gut health and lower sugar load relative to traditional soda. Both retail at premium prices ($2.49 to $2.99 per can vs $0.50 to $0.75 for legacy soda) and have built distribution into Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Kroger, and the major US grocery chains.

The market size and the $1.95B PepsiCo deal

The growth rate is what makes the category structurally interesting. Per Beverage Industry Magazine, modern soda sales reached $1.8 billion in 2024, up 83% from $983 million in 2023. That is one of the fastest growth rates in any major US grocery category.

Zooming in on the prebiotic and probiotic subsegment, Grand View Research sizes the global market at $478.3M in 2024 with a projection to $766.1M by 2030 at an 8.2% CAGR. The US specifically is projected to grow from $171.6M in 2024 to $268.8M by 2030 at 7.8% CAGR.

The defining transaction in the category came in March 2025 when PepsiCo announced it was acquiring Poppi for $1.95 billion, or $1.65 billion net of $300M in anticipated cash tax benefits, as reported by CNBC. Poppi did approximately $500M in 2024 revenue, which means PepsiCo paid roughly 4x revenue for the brand.

The strategic logic is straightforward. PepsiCo could not afford to let a consumer challenger own the next generation of the soda aisle, particularly with Gen Z consumers who skew sharply away from legacy carbonated soft drinks. Buying Poppi was faster than building. Coca-Cola took the opposite path and launched Simply Pop under its existing Simply juice brand in early 2025. Both strategies validate the category. Neither incumbent thinks it can ignore it.

The Amazon market

Most functional soda volume happens at retail rather than on Amazon, which makes the Amazon data a useful directional signal rather than a primary sales indicator. Pulling the broader prebiotic and functional drink ecosystem from our Amazon categories table:

The interesting thing is how broadly the prebiotic descriptor is now travelling on Amazon. The "prebiotic drink" keyword alone does $437K monthly per top listing. Mushroom coffee blends at $343K. Even prebiotic toothpaste is doing $235K per listing in adjacent supplement categories not shown above. The "prebiotic" qualifier has become a category-defining shelf modifier the way "organic" did in the 2000s. Functional soda is one consumer-facing manifestation of a much larger ingredient story.

The leading brands and the competitive landscape

The market share split in the modern soda category as of 2024 (per Beverage Industry Magazine):

Poppi (38%) was founded by Allison and Stephen Ellsworth and got its first national exposure on Shark Tank in 2018 with an investment from Rohan Oza. The company raised a $25M round in late 2022 and reached approximately $500M in 2024 revenue before being acquired by PepsiCo for $1.95B in March 2025, confirmed by Food Dive. Its formula leans on apple cider vinegar plus agave inulin.

Olipop (32.7%) was founded by Ben Goodwin and David Lester. Per Fortune's reporting, the company started with a $100,000 investment, scaled through TikTok and Instagram, and now sits at a $1.85 billion valuation after a $50 million Series C led by JPMorgan Growth Equity Partners. Olipop reportedly surpassed $400 million in 2024 revenue and is profitable. Still independent, but widely viewed as the next likely strategic exit.

Zevia (12.1%) is the older incumbent, stevia-sweetened, plant-based, originally focused on the calorie-free positioning before the prebiotic wave.

Jarritos (10.3%) is a heritage Mexican fruit soda brand benefiting from the broader cultural lift of the category.

Culture Pop, Olipop's smaller competitors, and Coca-Cola's Simply Pop sit in the long tail. The pattern across the leaderboard is consistent. Brand-led, social-media-built, prebiotic-positioned, and now backed by serious institutional capital or strategic acquirers.

The science behind the prebiotic claim

Prebiotic fibers are indigestible plant fibers that pass through the small intestine intact and feed beneficial gut bacteria in the colon, particularly Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species. The specific fibers used in functional soda formulas include inulin (Poppi), and a blend of cassava root fiber, chicory root, and Jerusalem artichoke (Olipop).

The evidence base for prebiotic fibers themselves is real. Multiple peer-reviewed studies confirm that inulin and similar fibers measurably alter gut microbiome composition, support short-chain fatty acid production, and have a documented impact on digestive health.

The honest qualifier is dose. A single can of Poppi contains roughly 2g of prebiotic fiber. A single can of Olipop contains roughly 9g. Daily recommended fiber intake for adults is 25 to 38 grams. So a functional soda can contribute meaningfully to a day's fiber intake, particularly the higher-fiber Olipop formula, but it cannot substitute for a fiber-rich whole-food diet.

This dose question became a public issue in 2024 when Poppi faced a class action lawsuit alleging that its gut-health marketing claims overstated the actual benefit per can. The case was settled, but it became part of the cultural conversation about how aggressively functional beverage brands can market health claims tied to their fiber content.

The neutral read on the science: the underlying biology is real, the per-can health benefits are smaller than most marketing suggests, and the category is still dramatically healthier than legacy soda on sugar load alone (5g vs 39g for a can of Coca-Cola).

Where this is heading

A few things look likely going into late 2026 and 2027.

More M&A consolidation. Olipop is the most obvious next strategic target if the company does not IPO first. Coca-Cola, Keurig Dr Pepper, or Anheuser-Busch InBev (which already owns several non-alcoholic experimental brands) are the natural buyers. Smaller players like Culture Pop, Mayawell, and Halfday are likely to consolidate or be picked up by mid-tier beverage holding companies.

Format expansion. The "prebiotic cola" keyword on Amazon is already doing $68K monthly per top listing. Expect prebiotic energy drinks, prebiotic mixers, prebiotic still water, and prebiotic dairy alternatives to all show up in the next 18 months. The "prebiotic" prefix is doing what "organic" did 20 years ago, expanding from one product to an entire shelf section.

Tighter regulatory and legal scrutiny. As the category matures, expect FDA attention on per-can prebiotic dose claims, expect more class action lawsuits along the Poppi pattern, and expect industry self-policing on standardized fiber-content disclosure.

Search term maturation. The "functional soda" umbrella term will keep growing as awareness saturates beyond the lead brands. Brand-name searches will plateau as the category becomes a default consideration set rather than a brand discovery question. That is the same pattern energy drinks went through between 2010 and 2018.

The category is no longer a startup story. It is a billion-dollar segment of the broader CPG beverage industry with two billion-dollar brands inside it, two of the world's largest beverage conglomerates fighting for share, and an established Amazon adjacency in supplements and functional drinks pushing the prebiotic descriptor across the entire grocery aisle.

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Want to spot emerging shifts like this before they hit the headlines? Read our guide on how to identify market trends, explore the live functional soda trend page, or browse what is breaking out right now on the Rising Trends dashboard.