Household Ingredients Compared  ›  Isotonic Drinks (Singapore)

Isotonic drinks: what's actually in it?

An isotonic drink is, in ingredient terms, a fairly simple formula: water, sugar (for energy and to match the body's salt/sugar concentration), salts that supply electrolytes (sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphate, chloride), an acid for tang and preservation, flavouring, and sometimes a preservative. The differences between brands are: carbonated or not, sugared or sweetened with zero-sugar sweeteners, and which extra vitamins or additives are thrown in. This page compares the lists as printed — sugar, electrolytes and flavourings included — and does not rank the drinks or claim any performance benefit.

A scope note: this page covers ready-to-drink isotonic/sports drinks and their powder sachets where a list was verified. Plain water, coconut water (separate page), vitamin waters that are not labelled isotonic, and electrolyte tablets/powders sold as supplements are not counted as isotonic drinks here — except for one clearly-labelled borderline product at the end, which is flagged as not isotonic.

The headline, in 30 seconds

• Singapore's isotonic shelf is really two brands deep. 100 Plus (F&N) and Pocari Sweat (Otsuka) dominate FairPrice and the other supermarkets checked; H-Two-O (Yeo's) is the third name, but its full current list could not be verified in this pass — see the seen list. Everything else (Gatorade, Aquarius, Mizone) appears in Singapore only via import/convenience channels without a verifiable supermarket ingredient section.
• Carbonation is the first split. 100 Plus Original and 100 Plus Zero Sugar are carbonated; 100 Plus Active and Pocari Sweat are not. If you dislike fizz, the list alone will not tell you — the product name (“Active”, “non-carbonated”) does.
• Zero sugar does not mean zero sweetener. 100 Plus Zero Sugar replaces sucrose/glucose with acesulfame-K and sucralose, and keeps the same electrolyte salts and the preservative sodium benzoate. The electrolyte part of the list barely changes; the sweetener part changes completely.
• 100 Plus Active is the only one with added B vitamins (B3, B6, B12) and the only one with three sugars (sucrose, fructose, glucose) plus potassium sorbate as a second preservative-type ingredient. Its list is the longest on this page.
• Pocari Sweat's bottle list is the one to read twice. The Singapore-origin bottle list includes monosodium L-glutamate (a flavour enhancer) and DL-malic acid alongside the expected salts — ingredients that do not appear in the shorter Open Food Facts version of the same product. Sources conflict, and the page shows the fuller list with the conflict flagged, rather than quietly using the shorter one.
• Little Farms adds no mainstream isotonic drink. Its drinks range checked in this pass contains coconut water, kombucha, kefir and juices, plus electrolyte powders and a recovery iced tea — but no bottled isotonic sports drink. The recovery tea is included at the end as a flagged borderline item, not as an isotonic drink.
• Re-audit 5 Nov 2026 — two more 100 Plus flavours panelled. 100 Plus Lemon and 100 Plus Orange are now panelled from Open Food Facts Singapore listings (flagged secondary): Lemon swaps sodium benzoate for potassium sorbate and adds tartrazine; Orange is near-identical to Original with an unnamed colouring. H-Two-O still cannot be panelled — the Shopee SG page itself truncates its list mid-word, and that was re-checked in this re-audit.

At a glance

Prices are deliberately not shown here: they change weekly and would go stale. This site compares ingredients only.

100 Plus — carbonated: Original and Zero Sugar

100 Plus — flavoured variants: Lemon and Orange

Flavour variants are separate rows under the scope rule — they are not assumed identical to Original. Both panels below are Open Food Facts Singapore listings, flagged as secondary.

100 Plus Active — the non-carbonated, vitamin-added one

Pocari Sweat — bottle and sachets

Borderline — at Little Farms, but not an isotonic drink

Seen but not verified — do not panel until checked:

• H-Two-O Isotonic Drink — Original (non-carbonated) and Sparkling (Yeo's) — listed at FairPrice (including BCRS listings) and Shopee SG, but no complete verbatim list was retrieved: the Shopee SG BCRS listing text cuts off mid-list (“Water, sucrose, fructose, glucose, citric acid, sodium citrate, sodium chloride, potassium phosphate, flavourings, sodium ben…”), and the FairPrice sparkling page returned a 404 in this pass. The Shopee SG product page itself was re-opened in this re-audit (5 Nov 2026) and truncates at the same point (“…flavourings, sodium”) — the truncation is in Shopee's own product data, not just in a search snippet. A truncated list is not panelled as a complete list. Secondary background (a 2018 industry brochure) gives H-Two-O as sugar 6.9%, sodium 39mg/100ml vs 100 Plus sugar 6%, sodium 49mg/100ml — useful context, not a pack list.
• 100 Plus flavours beyond Original/Zero/Active/Lemon/Orange — Lemon Lime, Tangy Tangerine, Berries, Edge — HPB product listings include 100PLUS Original, Lemon Lime, Orange, Zero Sugar and Edge; brand coverage also names Tangy Tangerine and Berries. No verbatim ingredient list was retrieved for Lemon Lime, Tangy Tangerine, Berries or Edge in this pass; flavour variants are separate rows under the scope rule, so they stay unpanelled rather than assumed identical to Original. (Lemon and Orange are now panelled above.)
• 100 Plus Active Isotonic Powder (sachets) — listed on Carousell/Shopee SG as 5 × 15g with vitamins B3, B6, B12, but no full ingredient list was verified. Run Magazine (SG) confirms it is sold at leading Singapore supermarkets, with the same formulation as regular 100PLUS plus B vitamins — a description, not a list.
• Gatorade (all variants, including Zero Sugar) — no SG supermarket ingredient section was verified in this pass. US Gatorade Zero lists (water, citric acid, sodium citrate, salt, monopotassium phosphate, modified food starch, sucralose, acesulfame potassium, colours) exist, but Gatorade's Singapore presence is via convenience/import channels and the US list must not be presented as the SG list. An Australian Open Food Facts listing for Gatorade Watermelon (water, sucrose, glucose, food acids 330/331, flavour, monopotassium phosphate, sodium chloride) also exists — again, not an SG pack list.
• Aquarius (Japan, via Donki), Mizone, Revive-style electrolyte drinks — no SG-facing verbatim ingredient section was verified for any of them in this pass. (Revive pills are a supplement, not a drink, and are out of scope in any case.)
• Electrolyte Stamina PowerPaks (Little Farms, e.g. Mixed Berry, Orange Blast, Cherry Lime) — Little Farms lists them as effervescent electrolyte powders with vitamin C, trace minerals and vitamins D3/B6/B12, but no full ingredient list was retrieved; powders sold as supplements are in any case outside the ready-to-drink isotonic scope, so they are noted here only to show the Little Farms check was done.
• Giant / Sheng Siong / Cold Storage / Mustafa / Meidi-Ya / Le Petit Depot / RedMart isotonic ranges — no additional isotonic brands with verifiable lists were found from those channels in this pass beyond 100 Plus, Pocari Sweat and H-Two-O; an in-store check would be needed to close this gap.

Nutrition — what the numbers say

All rows below are per 100 ml, as sold, except the Pocari Sweat sachet row, which is per 100 ml as prepared. Across the ready-to-drink rows, sugars run from 0 g (100 Plus Zero Sugar — Original) to 6.0 g (100 Plus Active), and sodium from 43 mg (100 Plus Active) to 51 mg (100 Plus Zero Sugar — Original). No official Singapore Nutri-Grade letter was found printed on any pack/listing in this pass, so none is quoted for any drink on this page — the 'Healthier Choice: 25% lower in sugar' note found for 100 Plus Active is a retailer claim, quoted as such in the research notes, not a Nutri-Grade letter.

Salt = sodium × 2.5. Sodium is shown as printed; the salt equivalent is in brackets. Sodium is never presented as salt. Figures below are total sugars as printed on Singapore-style packs, not added sugars — the ingredient list on this page remains the evidence for added sugar versus naturally occurring sugars. No Nutri-Grade letter is quoted unless it was found printed on the pack or listing; none is assigned here, and no health score or verdict is given.

— means not stated in the source found for that row, not zero. Per-serving rows are quoted exactly as printed and are not converted to per 100 g/ml. Where sources conflict, the conflict is flagged in the notes below and in the research notes, not silently resolved.

Conflicts and flags. 100 Plus Original: other listings give sugars 5.4 g and 6 g per 100 ml, and one gives sodium 168 mg (salt 0.42 g) — that sodium figure conflicts sharply with the Singapore listing (46 mg) and is flagged, not averaged. 100 Plus Active: a second trader listing gives per 100 ml energy 18 kcal, carbohydrate 4.5 g, sugars 4.5 g, sodium 41 mg, versus the retailer row above (25 kcal, 6.0 g, 43 mg). Pocari Sweat bottle: a 340 ml listing gives sugars 6.7 g and sodium 120 mg per 100 ml, versus the row above (5.8 g, 50 mg) — pack/market variation, flagged. Pocari sachets: an Open Food Facts powder-as-sold panel (per 100 g powder: carbohydrate 93.9 g, sugars 86.4 g) is a different basis from the as-prepared row and is not mixed into it. All sugars are total sugars as printed. Recover Berry Burst Wellness Iced Tea is not tabled here because, as the ingredient section states, it is not labelled isotonic.

Seen but not verified (nutrition) — do not use figures for these until checked from the pack:

• No panelled isotonic drink is left without a nutrition row on this page except the two re-audit flavour panels below. Recover Berry Burst Wellness Iced Tea (Little Farms) is deliberately excluded from the table, not unverified — it is not labelled isotonic (see ingredient section).
• 100 Plus Lemon and 100 Plus Orange — no nutrition panels verified in this pass; do not borrow the Original row.
• H-Two-O, already listed as unverified for ingredients, likewise has no nutrition row here.

How to read an isotonic label — the jargon, in plain English

Isotonic

Means the drink's salt + sugar concentration is close to the body's fluids, so it is absorbed about as quickly as water. It is a concentration claim, not an ingredient — two drinks can both be “isotonic” with different sugars and salts.

Electrolytes

Minerals that carry an electric charge in the body: sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, phosphate. On these labels they appear as salts — sodium chloride (table salt), sodium citrate, potassium chloride, potassium phosphate, calcium phosphate, calcium lactate, magnesium carbonate — not as the bare mineral names.

Sucrose, glucose, fructose

Three sugars that appear on these labels. Sucrose is table sugar; glucose and fructose are its component sugars. A drink listing all three (100 Plus Active) is not “three times as sugary” — it is a blend; the nutrition panel's total sugars is the comparable number, not the count of sugar names.

Acesulfame-K (acesulfame potassium), sucralose, stevia extract

High-intensity sweeteners used in zero-sugar versions instead of sugar. They provide sweetness without sugar — but a drink listing them is sweetened, not unsweetened.

Sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate

Preservatives that stop mould/yeast growth in bottled drinks. Pocari Sweat's supplier listing claims no preservatives; 100 Plus lists sodium benzoate, and Active adds potassium sorbate.

Citric acid, sodium citrate, malic acid

Acids and acidity regulators: they give the tangy taste and control pH. Sodium citrate doubles as a sodium electrolyte source.

Glucono-delta-lactone, calcium lactate

Acidity/firming agents that also supply calcium (lactate) or act as a slow-release acid (glucono-delta-lactone) in Pocari Sweat's formula. They are not sweeteners.

Monosodium L-glutamate (MSG)

A flavour enhancer listed on the Singapore-origin Pocari Sweat bottle list. It is flagged here because it is absent from the shorter version of the same product's list and from the powder sachets — check the exact pack if this matters to you.

BCAAs (L-leucine, L-valine, L-isoleucine)

Branched-chain amino acids, protein building blocks, listed only in the borderline Recover tea above — not an ingredient of any isotonic drink panelled here.

What this page is not

• Not a health score, and not a performance claim. “Hydrates better than water” and similar phrases are brand/retailer descriptions, quoted as such.
• Not a price comparison. Prices change weekly; ingredients change less often, but still change.
• Not complete. H-Two-O — the third mainstream Singapore isotonic brand — is deliberately left unpanelled because its list came back truncated, rather than completed from a partial snippet. 100 Plus Lemon Lime, Tangy Tangerine, Berries and Edge, the 100 Plus Active powder, Gatorade and Aquarius/Mizone remain unverified for the reasons given.

Sources and method

Checked 5–6 November 2026 from: NTUC FairPrice product pages (ingredient sections for 100 Plus Zero Sugar Original and Zero Sugar Power Peach, Pocari Sweat sachets, 100 Plus Active product description); Little Farms product page (Recover Berry Burst); Open Food Facts Singapore listings for 100 Plus Original and Pocari Sweat bottle, cross-checked against Singapore-origin retail listings (Spinneys, Shopee SG BCRS) and the manufacturer's Japan list where they conflict; Malaysian retail listings for 100 Plus Active. Re-audit 5 Nov 2026 added: Open Food Facts Singapore listings for 100 Plus Lemon (barcode 8888200708115) and 100 Plus Orange (barcode 8888200708160); Shopee SG product page re-opened for H-Two-O (truncation confirmed in Shopee's own data); Carousell SG / Run Magazine SG confirmation of 100 Plus Active powder SG sale; Australian Open Food Facts listing for Gatorade Watermelon (not an SG list). Full per-fact source list is in the accompanying research notes. Where a full pack list could not be verified — H-Two-O, Gatorade, Aquarius — the page says so instead of filling the gap.