Ritual’s Latest Launch Is a Fertility-supporting Lemonade

Ritual is continuing to build its women’s health offering, this time with a fertility-boosting lemon-flavored powder.

The supplement brand launched its Fertility Support 3-in-1 Drink Mix, $99, available on the brand’s website and Amazon to start. While the Ritual team did not share sales figures for this particular launch, WWD previously reported that the brand was expected to exceed $200 million in sales this year.

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According to Ritual founder and chief executive officer Katerina Schneider, this launch reflects the brand’s larger mission to offer women’s health solutions for every stage of life.

“This supplement has been a long time coming,” she said. “Our vision is to be the most trusted brand for women’s health.”

Particularly in the reproductive health space, the brand has achieved that. It is the top-selling pregnancy brand on Amazon and has the number-one prenatal at Whole Foods, according to the team.

“Our idea around pregnancy and postpartum and trying to conceive is really to provide the essentials to the consumer….[Fertility] as a category, it’s not massive like other vitamin products or supplements, but it is essential to our consumer’s needs,” Schneider said, adding that the brand will continue to round out its reproductive health portfolio.

In terms of why fertility was the next need state to tap into, she added: “When we looked at the stats, we saw that by the age of 30, most women have a one in five chance of becoming pregnant per cycle. At the age of 40, the odds drop one in 20. The cultural conversation around fertility, and why it was really important for us to go into this category, is that it felt like it was beyond her control. People felt helpless in their fertility journeys.”

From there, the team tapped into the market and was disappointed with current offerings in terms of safety standards and efficacy. Therefore, the team did a deep dive on scientific literature for fertility-boosting ingredients, landing on three of the most effective: myo-inositol, N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) and CoQ10.

“[For myo-inositol], there’s clinical studies at 4 grams a day, showing that it supports normal ovulation cycles, helps support egg health and then helps support fertility…[NAC)] at 1.2 grams a day, it’s been shown to support ovarian health and help support fertility outcomes,” said Adeline Grier-Welch, registered dietitian nutritionist and Ritual senior scientist. “[CoQ10] supplementation has been shown to improve follicular fluid levels of CoQ10 and support fertility outcomes.”

The product should be used twice daily and three months prior to what the brand is calling a “fertility milestone,” according to Grier-Welch.

While Ritual always uses clinically studied dosages in its formulas, the brand has also committed to conducting clinicals on each of its own products by 2030. Currently, the brand has a published clinical on its Essential for Women Multivitamin 18+, $33. It has also completed clinicals on its HyaCera Daily Skin Hydration, $54, and Sleep BioSeries Melatonin, $25. This new launch will also be added to the clinical pipeline.

Given that the clinically studied dosages of each ingredient are large in fertility support, the team had to look at alternative formats to capsules, ultimately landing on a powder drink. That being said, this format fits nicely into the growing powder category led by the sexy water and sleepy girl mocktail trends.

“The science led the formation of the powder. We weren’t thinking about trendiness, but powders are having a moment,” Schneider said, noting another powder product is on the way.

To tap into the trendiness, the brand has created a moctkail cheekily called the “fertilitini,” which will be promoted across social channels to introduce the product. It includes the powder, orange juice, raspberry juice and a lemon rind to garnish.

While the sexy water trend didn’t inspire the product, the team also tapped into a sexier look for the creative.

“The creative inspiration is sexy in a way, and it’s a little provocative compared to the other products on the market,” Schneider said. “We like to have fun with our marketing and not take ourselves too seriously.”

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