UPKEEP

Four morning things became one.

Yerba mate, creatine and a mineral base in a single stick. Eight ingredients, every dose printed on the front of the pack.

100 mg caffeine 3 g creatine 190 mg sodium 85 mg vitamin C

The Upkeep range: a Lemon Mint carton, a Lemon Mint stick, a Strawberry Raspberry pouch and a Strawberry Raspberry stick, on a warm cream backdrop — Lemon Mint and Strawberry Raspberry. Twenty sticks to a pack.

What Upkeep is

A stick of powder that replaces a shelf of tubs

Stir one into twelve ounces of cold water. It carries the caffeine of a coffee, a daily maintenance dose of creatine, a light mineral base and a day's vitamin C. Nothing is hidden in a blend, because there is no blend to hide it in.

Creatinea tub and a scoop

Electrolytesa separate packet

Vitamin Ca tablet

Coffeea second drink

One stick. One glass of water.

5.3 g · 8 ingredients · $1.00 a serving

How Upkeep began

It started as four things on a kitchen counter

Not a market gap. A morning routine that had quietly turned into a chore, and the suspicion that most of it could be one thing instead.

1

The counter

A creatine tub, an electrolyte packet, a vitamin C tablet and a coffee. Four containers, four decisions, every single morning.

2

The problem nobody solved

Creatine breaks down in liquid, so nobody puts it in a can. Keep the format dry and the problem disappears, which is why Upkeep is a powder and not a drink.

3

Subtraction, not addition

Collagen and amino acids were in the first draft and are not in this one. Each had to do something real at the dose used. They did not, so they went.

Why choose Upkeep

Three reasons, and the honest version of each

The list is short enough to read

Eight ingredients. Most stacked powders run to fifteen or more, and the long ones use the length as the argument. Here the length is the argument in the other direction.

Every dose on the front

3 g of creatine, on purpose

Three grams daily is the maintenance dose once your stores are full. It is also the amount that fully dissolves in a cold glass, where five grams would leave grit at the bottom.

Built for daily use

It is a drink, not a chore

Mate is earthy and a little bitter, so the salt softens it and the fruit brightens it. The goal is something you look forward to, not something you get through.

Lemon mint or berry

Ingredients and benefits

Everything in the stick, and what each one is for

Listed heaviest first, the way the back of the pack lists them. The two flavour ingredients change between the sticks; everything above them is the same in both.

Creatine monohydrate3.00 g A maintenance dose, not a loading dose. Micronized so it dissolves faster in cold water.

Sea salt1.00 g 190 mg of sodium, and it does a second job: salt suppresses the bitterness mate brings.

Yerba mate leaf extract0.50 g 100 mg of caffeine, about one cup of coffee, from the leaf rather than added caffeine.

Acerola cherry powder0.50 g 85 mg of vitamin C, 94% of the daily value, and the tartness that makes the fruit read as fruit.

Fruit and botanical flavour0.50 g Lemon peel with peppermint, or strawberry with raspberry. Dried and milled, never a flavour house blend.

Potassium chloride salt0.19 g 100 mg of potassium, held just under the level at which a warning statement is conventionally added.

Monk fruit extract0.035 g Sweetness without sugar alcohols. Pure extract, not the erythritol blend sold at retail.

Where this goes

One honest product at a time

Upkeep starts as a single morning stick because that is what a first production run can carry. Everything after it is sequenced by what the manufacturing and the reorder rate will actually fund, not by what sounds good on a slide. Each new flavour and each new product is its own minimum run, so nothing on this board moves until the one before it pays for it.

Shipping first

Run one · 2027

Lemon MintTwenty-stick box
Strawberry RaspberryTwenty-stick box
Trial packFour sticks, one of each
Direct onlyNo retail in run one

MangoThird flavour
PeachFourth flavour
Variety packFive of each, twenty sticks
SubscriptionThirty sticks a month
Refill pouchForty sticks, far less film

Later

2029

Upkeep NightMagnesium and glycine, no caffeine
Tub and scoopFor anyone drinking it daily
Unsweetened baseSame formula, no monk fruit
Caffeine-free dayThe minerals without the mate

Beyond

2030 and on

Protein stickOne source, never a blend
Greens stickWhole food or not at all
Ready to drinkCold-filled, creatine added at opening
Hydration stickMid-session, no creatine, no caffeine
WholesaleGyms and independent grocery
Canada and the UKWhere the label rules allow it

The rule that does not move

Every product on this list carries a short ingredient list with every dose printed on the front of the pack. If something can only be made by hiding it inside a proprietary blend, or by adding a row of ingredients that exist to make the manufacturing easier rather than to do anything for you, it comes off the list. The point was never to sell more things. It was to make the shelf smaller, and a range is only worth building if the nineteenth product is as readable as the first.

Join the list

First run is small. The list gets it first.

Twenty thousand sticks, two flavours, one production run. We will write when the taste tests are done and again when boxes are ready to ship.

We will only write about Upkeep, and you can leave at any time. We do not sell or share anything you give us.

The planned Upkeep range: a Peach tub, Lemon Mint and Mango cartons, a Strawberry Raspberry refill pouch, an Upkeep Night carton and loose sticks

The range as planned. Run one is Lemon Mint and Strawberry Raspberry only — everything else here is on the roadmap above.

The shop opens with run one

Three packs to start: a four-stick trial, the twenty-stick variety box with ten of each flavour, and a thirty-stick subscription. Checkout will live on its own storefront.

Trial 4 · $6.99 Box 20 · $19.99 Sub 30 · $39.99