Let’s take an inventory of the various cups on my desk. There’s a tumbler full of water, a shaker bottle with the dredges of my post-workout branched-chain amino acid blend and a glass of my home-brewed iced tea. (Nearly every surface in my house has a similar assortment of beverages.)

I’m clearly adding to the functional beverage industry’s highly successful numbers. According to Euromonitor International, functional and fortified beverages poured USD $86 million in global sales in 2013, a 5.1-percent increase from 2012.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled—and, dare I say, highly qualified—to bring you INSIDER’s new Functional Beverage Perspectives Blog. A couple times a week, I’ll bring you the beverage market’s latest news, covering trends in ingredients, new market data, technology innovations and emerging research. You can also expect compelling Q&As with top industry execs (are you one of them?) on their take of the segment’s most pressing issues.

Have some bubbly beverage news to share? I want it! Feel free to email me at [email protected] with what you think the industry needs to know.

Cheers!