Northeastern grad develops healthier alternative to energy drinks
This Healthy Energy Drink May Be Coming to a Store Near You
Creating her own beverage product was not on Northeastern graduate Nicole Khoury’s radar. But getting diagnosed with a chronic immune system disease known as eosinophilic esophagitis, also called EoE for short, when she was 17 meant Khoury had to be careful about what went into her body.
The disease causes difficulty swallowing, which Khoury found out when she choked on a common over-the-counter painkiller. “It was a near death experience,” she said.
Gluten, dairy and artificial additives are also not something Khoury can tolerate. “I’m super conscious about everything that I put in my body,” she said. “I can’t go out and eat whatever I want.”
In her day job in the marketing division of a tech company, Khoury had a hard time finding an alternative to traditional energy drinks when she needed an afternoon pick-me-up, which led her to create, along with restaurateur Christian Tabet, a natural energy and wellness drink that they bill as “clean and functional.”
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Called Journée—French for daytime— the drink relies on lion’s mane mushrooms for focus, coffee beans for a moderate dose of caffeine and vitamin C from unsweetened fruit juices to power customers through mornings or to pick them up in the afternoon. The drink also comes in three flavors—blueberry hibiscus, raspberry dragon fruit and soleil citrus.
“Journée has been the focus of my life for the past two years,” said Khoury, an industrial engineering major. “We deliver the highest quality to every ingredient,” she said.
The drink’s design — a slim 12 oz can — and the product’s name are inspired by the time that Khoury and Tabet — who are engaged — spent in France, said Khoury, who came to the U.S. from Lebanon to attend Northeastern. “We wanted to bring this French quality into the drink,” elevating it to a flavorful, healthy treat rather than caffeinated rocket fuel, she said.
The amount of caffeine in the product comes to 125 milligrams, about the same as what’s in a medium cup of coffee, Khoury said. She said the addition of L-theanine, an amino acid widely used to promote relaxation, cuts down on the jitters, while lion’s mane mushrooms, traditionally used in Chinese medicine, have been reported in pre-clinical studies to have neuroprotective and cognition enhancing benefits, according to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
“It’s really good for focus,” Khoury said.
Founding an energy drink company may seem a long way from her industrial engineering major, but Khoury said Northeastern prepared her well for the experience of being an entrepreneur.
The experiential learning emphasized at the university “made me realize that you can have an idea and actually implement it,” she said. “No matter what major you’re in, you have an ecosystem you can rely on.”
A co-op at Wayfair taught her about supply chain management and branding, while one at the Boston Consulting Group emphasized risk management—all skills she employs today as the beverage company co-founder.
The same goes for her jobs after college, including her first position in banking. “Now I’m such a numbers person,” Khoury said, adding that when first starting out as an entrepreneur “every dollar counts.”
That attitude is perhaps what led Khoury and Tabet to literally hit the streets around Boston, walking with cooler backpacks and slim cans of Journée for store managers and potential customers to sip. “We were very, very scrappy,” she said.
Brookline Booksmith stocked the drinks but has since sold out. “We were happy to give it a try, especially since they are local,” said Peter Win, manager and part owner. “We definitely like supporting local businesses.”
Store employees at DeLuca’s Market in Beacon Hill and at Top Shelf Market in Beacon Hill said the first batch did well when it was sold at their store.
After sampling the drinks at an Alumni Entrepreneur Marketplace event last month, Allie Adam, special assistant and project manager for alumni relations and annual giving, said she became an immediate devotee. “I’m not typically someone who likes energy drinks but they’ve converted me to a Journée fan, and I’ll be drinking these as I go from work to my master’s classes,” she said.
While the U.S. energy drink market is highly competitive and saturated with products, it is also expected to grow from $20.71 billion in 2024 to $41.36 billion by 2033, according to a market analysis.
It’s part of why Khoury and Tabet, who now works for Journée full time, have plans to expand to larger stores by working with a distributor instead of distributing the product themselves.
The dream is to provide a healthier alternative to highly caffeinated, sugary or artificially sweetened energy drinks in bigger chain or convenience stores, Khoury said. “Everybody needs energy at some point in our days.”
