Kinda dumb question but I figured it fits the sub lol

so these boxes are at my work and they’re a syrupy hyper sweet mixture that when combined with carbonated water make soda and it got me thinking:

why don’t they sell ones for like Monster energy?

is it because of the costs, or kids accessing it, or some law?

  • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    For those who don’t realize this, it’s highly likely you will feel 1000 times better than you do today, in ways you may not expect, if you switch to drinking water.

    I encourage everyone to try it for a month. And if you feel like a month is too long, evaluate your attitudes towards these things as it relates to addiction.

  • Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world
    23·
    7 days ago

    People would kill themselves by over consuming it.

    Panera bread had a charged lemonade energy drink and two people died.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
    23·
    8 days ago

    Costs. These types of machines are generally free refills. You take a 32oz coke, and say actual cost to the store for you getting that coke is about 15 cents. You paid $2.30. Most people get 1 refill. But even if you get multiple, they still make profit.

    I don’t know wholesale costs of monster, but I know a 20oz bottle in stores here costs about $2. While a 24oz can of monster costs about $9.

    It wouldn’t surprise me if a 32oz fountain of monster cost the store like $0.70 wholesale. So there’s no way they could make profit if people got multiple refills.

    Plus, if you try to sell the monster at a higher cost than coke, what would stop someone from dumping the coke, and refilling with monster? Paying the lower innitial price, and now getting refills.

    • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
      10·
      8 days ago

      WTF? Monster costs $9? That’s insane.

      But you’re right it’s cost. I had a Soda Stream and I had the red bull syrup for it so the ability is there and the materials exist.

    • BussyCat@lemmy.world
      5·
      8 days ago

      That’s because monster overcharges, caffiene powder is cheap and you could add it to soda for cheap

      • QualifiedKitten@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        7 days ago

        If you can get ahold of it, yes, very cheap. The problem is that a little goes a very long way, so it’s not so easy to get a hold of anymore, at least in the US.

        It was probably 10 years ago that I discovered that I could buy a 500g bag of pure caffeine powder for about $20, plus a milligram scale for another $20. I was drinking quite a bit of sugar free Red Bull at the time, and had been ordering them by the case ($50ish?) to save a little money, so it was a no brainer for me to switch to caffeine powder. Break even point was maybe 2 weeks worth of caffeinated beverages.

        The bad news is a few people OD’d on caffeine powder around that time (completely unrelated to me), so it was pretty much banned. The good news is that 500g is a fucking shit load of caffeine. I often get my caffeine from more traditional sources now (coffee, tea), so that bag may end up lasting me the rest of my life.

        For some additional context, a 250mL (8.4 oz) can of Red Bull contains 80mg caffeine, while a 1/16 teaspoon (~0.3mL) scoop of pure caffeine powder is about 200mg. That works out to less than 0.5¢ ($0.005) of caffeine per Red Bull, and I’m not even getting wholesale pricing.

        • BussyCat@lemmy.world
          2·
          6 days ago

          You can get it super easy in the U.S. for cheap

          Here is lab grade caffeine

          That if you wanted to make 150mg energy drinks it would cost less than 3 cents each.

          If you want to just mainline caffeine I would recommend caffiene pills they are preportioned and are cheap here are the equivalent to 100g pre measured out for under $20

          But my point still remains that the cost of caffeine is completely irrelevant to the cost of energy drinks

          • QualifiedKitten@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 days ago

            Definitely in agreement that the cost of caffeine is a non-factor in the cost of energy drinks vs. other soft drinks.

            I don’t believe Sigma Aldrich sells to the general public though, do they?

            Personally, I prefer the loose powder vs. preportioned capsules or pills, since it allows me easier control over the dose. When I use caffeine powder, I usually mix it into a drink and just sip on it, rather than take it all at once. Sometimes I just want some herbal tea or a sparkling water with a little extra caffeine… I want the caffeine of coffee or energy drinks, but I don’t want the flavor. Way back in the day, I’d add about 200mg caffeine to a 1L bottle of water and sip on that until it was about halfway gone, then top it off with more water to dilute the remaining caffeine.

            • BussyCat@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 days ago

              Anyone can order on sigma as long as you make an account! Which is really cool but a lot of the times their prices aren’t competitive with random products you could find on amazon since the average person rarely needs hplc grade products.

              I used to do that exact same thing with 200mg of caffiene in a Nalgene with a drop or two of lemon juice haha

    • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      Plus, if you try to sell the monster at a higher cost than coke, what would stop someone from dumping the coke, and refilling with monster? Paying the lower innitial price, and now getting refills.

      People have been doing that for years with buying water, and then filling it with fountain drinks.

      I suppose you could counter it the same way that some stores handled the soda refill issue. Have the energy drink refills behind the counter, where only employees can refill it. Have a special cup so employees can tell which customers actually bought an energy drink. Also gives employees a chance to intervene if someone tries to get too much and kill themselves (like with the Panera Bread lemonade/

    • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
      2·
      7 days ago

      Monster costs the company pennies more to make it. They just aggressively marketed these if they had a higher price because the original one in the USA, Redbull, was imported from Ireland at first which made the entry price higher.

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
    181·
    8 days ago

    The inevitable howling from Karens when their children get ahold of a 64 ounce Big Gulp of the stuff notwithstanding, the main issue is that fountain availability would pull back the curtain on the supposed value of energy drinks. These are no more expensive than Coke or Pepsi or Sprite for their bottlers to produce, but they’ve successfully bamboozled the public into believing that a Monster or a Red Bull or whatever is “worth” 4-6x more per ounce than a normal soda. This is obviously bullshit, but if you were able to dispense it at the same rate and the same price as normal soda the jig would be up and the energy store brands would have an absolute cow.

  • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
    16·
    8 days ago

    A regional gas station near me has their brand of energy drinks in soda dispensers like this one.

  • Cuberoot@lemmynsfw.com
    13·
    8 days ago

    There’s no technical reason why you couldn’t. It’s probably just some stupid marketing reason like:

    • A. Monster doesn’t want to sell its concentrate this way.
    • B. They do, but not at a price that would justify including it as an option among other common self serve beverages.
    • C. Stores don’t want to offer unlimited access to dangerously high levels of caffeine after a Panera customer with a pre-existing heart condition drank about a gallon of caffeinated lemonade and then dropped dead in the dining room.
  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    10·
    8 days ago

    Probably liability and insurance.

    What do you think would happen if you offered huge drinks, unlimited amounts or large capacity drinks of caffeinated, or energy supplements in a machine. What do you think a bored teenager with a bunch of his friends on a Friday night would do? They’d try to drink five gallons of Monster Energy just to see what would happen.

    Someone would suffer a heart attack or some medical emergency and lawyers would have a field day milking concerned parents and restaurants with access to millions in insurance.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
    10·
    8 days ago

    There at least used to be, and I got royally screwed by it.

    The employee hooked the wrong “orange” syrup up to the dispenser, and what I thought was 32oz of Orange Crush (caffeine free) was 32oz of some Orange energy drink. Needless to say, I was up all night and ended up having to call off work the next day because I was so exhausted and useless (I’m very sensitive to caffeine).

    Probably also less common due to liability. Panera got into hot water with their highly caffeinated lemonade.

    • Default_Defect@midwest.socialEnglish
      5·
      8 days ago

      I still maintain that someone with that level of caffeine sensitivity should have either:

      1 - Read the fucking sign that said it was caffeinated, or

      2 - Not drank a mystery liquid in lieu of signage

      “but why would you think lemonade would be caffeinated?” People with severe food allergies don’t just shove random food in their mouths, why would this person?