If an Energy Drink Drank an Energy Drink, You’d Get a Celsius
How a turbocharged upstart brand came to threaten Red Bull and Monster’s dominance.
As with so many fantastic tales, it all started with a Florida man. When Steve Haley retired from his job as the chief executive of a software company, he became interested in the beverage business. Soon he got a product idea by a nutrition-industry entrepreneur named Greg Horn: What if there were a magical drink that not only tasted good but also burned calories? The notion was promising enough that Haley unretired himself. In 2004 in Delray Beach, he co-founded the company that would become Celsius — a line of energy drinks that now ranks No. 3 in U.S. sales, having crept up to capture the bronze medal behind Red Bull and Monster. PepsiCo signed a distribution deal with the company in 2022, elevating its U.S. presence from popular to near-inescapable.
Perhaps you’ve seen a stand-alone branded Celsius refrigerator at your local convenience store, or rows of icy cans thrumming at 7-Eleven, or 12-packs for sale at Target. Perhaps you’ve heard the actress Dakota Johnson recount an anecdote about “basically, just, overdosing” on caffeine after drinking a lot of Celsius on a film set, having thought the drink was “just vitamins.” Formula 1 fans will recognize Celsius as the official energy drink of the Ferrari racing team. The brand has partnered with Theo Von, Kelsea Ballerini, Shaun White and countless fitness influencers. Jake Paul keeps three Celsius fridges in his sprawling Puerto Rico lair.
In the crowded field of energy drinks, this is an impressive rise to power. A clue to the brand’s success might be found in its slogan, “Live Fit.” Until Celsius, energy drink marketing tended to emphasize the rocket-fuel-in-a-can promise of the product. Nobody was pretending this stuff was healthy. Celsius stood out from the competition by insisting that it was a wellness drink — a coefficient of exercise and responsible hydration, not Call of Duty marathons. It contains no sugar. The information panel calls out “seven essential vitamins,” as well as green tea, guarana seed extract and ginger root extract. The uncluttered white cans depict recognizable fruits. The marketing language focuses on activity, movement, motivation, goals. The website features pictures of attractive people wielding kettle bells.
But does it incinerate calories, as Haley had dreamed? Sort of. “Caffeine does raise your metabolic rate, so consuming Celsius would burn more calories than if you didn’t,” the food scientist Claire Thrift said. “But likely so would any other product that contains the same amount of caffeine.” Thrift noted that the Celsius website, which features phrases like “science-backed” and “clinically proven,” lists only six studies, most of them small. “For the most part, the findings are along the lines of ‘Celsius, when combined with fitness, improves some physiological adaptations,’” she said.
“I think it’s important that Celsius comes in a 12-ounce sleek can that kind of resembles White Claw,” said Sean McGowan, a Managing Director at Roth Capital Partners. “Celsius didn’t just convince Red Bull or Monster drinkers to switch to their brand; they enticed new people into the category. Why had those people been reluctant to get into the category? Maybe because they perceived energy drinks in relation to gaming or partying instead of fitness. Maybe because 16 ounces is a lot of caffeinated liquid.” McGowan’s White Claw comparison is apt. Like Celsius, White Claw laundered an ancient intoxicant into a healthy-seeming choice through visual and sensory cues. The two drinks even have flavors in common. The cans could be siblings.
Celsius reads so clean, in fact, that it has become the energy drink of choice for swaths of the sober community. Jack Mintz, a therapist in New York, discovered Celsius in recovery, where it was immensely popular among people wary of what he called the “cultural stigma” around Red Bull and Monster. Mintz, who exercises often and avoids processed sugar, noticed that his gym carried Celsius. “There’s something very powerful about that coding,” he said. “Also, Celsius flavors are really, really good.”
It is true that in a blind test, a person might plausibly identify the referents behind Celsius flavors like Fuji Apple Pear and Orange. That’s not the case with Monster, whose flavors include Nitro and Assault, or Red Bull, whose primary formula tastes enigmatically of bubble gum and cough syrup. But striving for realism has risks, too. The pleasure potential of an energy drink flavor tends to be constrained by the bitterness of the ingredients — caffeine, taurine — that make it work. Celsius’ Orange tastes obviously inferior to an actual orange, whereas Monster’s Assault is technically incomparable. Whatever the degree of flavor abstraction, I’ve yet to find an energy drink that doesn’t taste a bit like expertly masked poison.
Which is fine. These drinks are not delicacies. As long as they achieve a basic level of palatability, consumers grade them on functionality. Some consumers desire a subtle pick-me-up while others crave full-body electrification. Whatever bonus ingredients an energy drink contains, it is primarily a vehicle for caffeine. And here we stumble upon the secret, or one of them, to the success of Celsius: a 12-ounce can contains 200 milligrams of caffeine. By comparison, a 16-ounce can of Monster has 160 milligrams of caffeine, while the traditional 8.4-ounce can of Red Bull has only 80 milligrams.
The brand may position itself as a fitness supplement, but its rise suggests a broader use case. As with Monster and Red Bull before it, many consumers drink Celsius for an extremely non-aspirational reason: to get through the workday. The U.S. military, a longtime advocate of strategic caffeine use, prizes the substance especially when it comes to tedious tasks that require unwavering alertness, like sentry duty. For health-conscious American civilians enduring the equivalent of sentry duty — unbelievably boring jobs that demand (but don’t encourage) sustained attention — Celsius is an effective propellant. Negligible calories, no high-fructose corn syrup, no genetically modified ingredients. In most places, it’s cheaper than buying a cup of coffee.
An earlier version of this article misidentified the person who originated the idea for a calorie-burning beverage. It was Greg Horn, not Steve Haley.
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