This 'healthy' soda brand sold for £1.5bn. But here's the truth...

Got a youngster on TikTok? No doubt they’ve been banging on about Poppi, the ‘healthy’ soft drink loved by influencers like Kylie Jenner, Hailey Bieber and even Jennifer Lopez.

With near endless celeb endorsements, the brand is big news in America. Since launching in 2018 as a so-called ‘gut-friendly’ option, Poppi has courted all sorts of publicity. Original founders Stephen and Allison Ellsworth received a £300,000 cash injection on reality series Shark Tank (America’s Dragon’s Den), followed by a further £10 million and £20 million from funding rounds in 2021 and 2022. It seems they used that money to fund brand deals with celebs, happy to be seen posing with colourful cans, and perhaps not too bothered about digging into the health claims. 

It seems Poppi is determined to stay in the headlines, whatever ridiculous stunt that requires. The most recent was ahead of the 2025 Superbowl, when Poppi’s team sent vending machines full of the fizzy drink to 32 influencers, estimated to have cost around £20,000 each (Poppi’s bosses dispute this figure, but haven’t themselves offered up any figures). Magazine Vice branded it ‘absurdly extravagant'. Quite.

But despite the negative headlines, Poppi’s owners are laughing all the way to the bank. In 2025, PepsiCo acquired the brand for a whopping £1.46bn. It’s reportedly turning over around £400m every year.

What’s the science?

Each can is around 30 calories and contains between 4g and 5g of sugar, depending on the flavour. The recommended daily allowance of sugar is 30g, with a standard Coke containing 39g. 

There’s an added 3g of fibre in Poppi Sodas from cassava root and agave inulin. On the Yuka app, which scans products for their impact on your health, Poppi’s Raspberry Rose flavour is rated at 58/100, while the Strawberry Lemon gets 47/100 due to its additives. By comparison, a standard Coca-Cola scores 0/100.

Does it stand up?

In 2024, a lawsuit was filed against Poppi in California. The suit alleged Poppi misled consumers with false claims about its gut benefits, and claimed the 2 grams of fibre in the drink are too low to create a meaningful effect on gut health. In July 2025, the company agreed to settle for £7 million.

So what’s the truth? Poppi’s supposed hard-hitter is agave inulin, a starchy substance and dietary fibre. But the general medical consensus seems to be that such a low-level of fibre is unlikely to have any considerable prebiotic benefits.

Dietician Rebecca Russell explained this to Healthline, saying Poppi’s fibre content is too low. ‘It is thought that closer to 3-10 grams of prebiotic fibres a day is considered effective in altering the gut microbiome,’ she says.

She also points out it only contains one type of prebiotic fibre, so it ‘lacks the diversity that our guts need’.

Another nutritionist, Tiffany Ma, went further, telling Heathline the inclusion of ‘added prebiotics’ (insulin) in Poppi can actually cause gastrointestinal distress, such as bloating and cramping. ‘Since Poppi is a liquid very little digestion is taking place, and that can heighten these negative effects,’ she explains.

We asked author of The Low Appetite Cookbook, Rob Hobson, an his take was strikingly similar. The fibre obviously ‘doesn’t come with the wider nutritional profile you get from beans, vegetables and grains’. Also, while the sugar content is low, the sodas ‘still rely on a combination of sugar and sweeteners like stevia’. 

Essentially they are flavoured soft drinks rather than health products. ‘There are healthier options you could choose from,’ says Hobson. If you need bubbles, go for fizzy water.

How does it taste? 

Given I'm a Gen Z and TikTok is one of my major news sources, I of course bought into the Poppi hype. I swapped my Diet Coke for a £3.75 (yes, really!) can of Poppi from Pret, and honestly, I thought it tasted delicious. It's like a lemon and lime seltzer sans the alcohol, and there's none of the nasty sugar-coating on your teeth you get with full-fat pop. 

But gut-health wise, I felt nothing. If anything, the bubbliness made me bloated, and it didn't noticeably help with, ahem, digestion. This is in stark contrast to other gut-health formulas I've tried like Symprove, which have had a near instant debloating effect. So my verdict is it's yummy, but ridiculously expensive and clearly not healthy enough to warrant drinking for the sake of it. In other words, a hype bubble that's sure to pop soon. 

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