The startup says its smoothie can quickly replace three of the recommended five fruit and vegetable servings. To do so, it has developed a powder made from freeze-dried fruit. Startbase has tested the starter set.

Five portions of fruit and vegetables a day: almost everyone knows this recommendation and almost no one sticks to it in a disciplined way. Especially when things get stressful in everyday life, the motivation to peel a tangerine or prepare a salad is low. What remains is a guilty conscience - and poor defenses in the long term. Many people therefore try to fill their vitamin needs with smoothies. But these often contain a lot of sugar and have more of a dessert character.

This is precisely where Daily Five claims to have discovered a gap in the market. The start-up sells instant smoothies. These are fruit and vegetable powders from which customers can easily mix their own smoothies with water or milk. The powder consists of freeze-dried fruits and vegetables. The advantage: Unlike apple juice, for example, which is often added to supermarket smoothies, freeze-dried fruit and vegetables contain a higher concentration of healthy ingredients.

The idea came to the two Chemnitz founders Christian Lein (22) and Lennie Schlund (24) during their dual business studies. "A dual study program is quite stressful and especially during the office days it was really not possible for us to eat enough fruits and vegetables," Christian Lein tells. Sometimes he was simply too comfortable to do so after work. But it was precisely this convenience that gave rise to the two students' business idea. .

This is the story of Daily Five

But it was a long road before they finally took the step of founding the company in August of last year, as Lein says. Although fruit powder has been around for a while, it is usually used more for refining, such as mueslis. "Turning the powder into a complete smoothie - that was more difficult than we thought," Lein says. The first attempts were "rather less outstanding," he says. They ordered 50 different powders and experimented with them, he said. At some point, they found a manufacturer who liked the idea - so they were able to move their development phase into the lab.

In the end, the Daily Five founders settled on three varieties: a berry smoothie, an exotic fruit smoothie, and a smoothie with a high vegetable content. Three of the five desirable daily fruit and vegetable servings are covered, Lein says. "The ingredients here are all fruits and vegetables that everyone knows - not some so-called superfood, we're skeptical of that." After all, he says, the smoothies are not a lifestyle product, but a solution for anyone who can't manage to get enough vitamins. But are the instant smoothies really the healthy solution for all fruit muffle? We took the test.

The Daily Five smoothies in the test

We took a closer look at the smoothies and broke them down for you into the categories of packaging, smoothie shaker, taste, ingredients and price. Here are the results.

Daily Five's packaging under test:

Nine whole days passed between ordering the smoothie starter kit and delivery. When the letter carrier finally brought the package to the front door, it looked a bit battered. Daily Five doesn't consider itself responsible for this - they always process orders in full within 48 hours, founder Lein emphasizes.

The package includes both a shaker and seven smoothie servings. Both the shaker and the smoothie portion bags were packaged once again in cardboard - certainly for protection, but possibly paper could be saved here. Some components of the smoothie shaker were individually wrapped in plastic. As a little extra, Daily Five included a poster in DIN A3 size, which depicts the respective seasonal fruits and vegetables for all seasons in a kind of pie chart. The poster looks nice and will certainly look good when customers pin it to the refrigerator, for example. .

The smoothie shaker from Daily Five in the test:

Included in the starter set is the so-called smoothie shaker. This is basically a glass bottle that has a removable strainer at the opening and in which the start-up has placed a so-called shaker ball. That's a ball that's made of a stainless steel spiral and is supposed to ensure that the smoothie is more airy and the powder mixes better. However, since it's annoying to quickly rinse this shaker ball by hand, some of the test smoothies were made without it - which worked just fine.

The shaker is encased in a black rubber sleeve that is open on three sides. It does make it appear that this sleeve is removable - such as before putting the shaker in the dishwasher. But beware: The cover is glued on, and once removed, it can only be reattached to the bottle with great effort. Otherwise, there are no problems cleaning the shaker in the dishwasher.

Individually, the smoothie shaker costs 18.99 euros, which is not a bargain. Co-founder Christian Lein says that the smoothie can also be prepared in a normal water bottle.

Whether smoothie shaker or normal bottle: the preparation always runs the same. First fill 250 milliliters of water, then add the powder and shake firmly for thirty seconds. If you use the smoothie shaker for this, it's best to press your thumb on the lid and make sure it doesn't open. Unfortunately, that's what happened in one case - and it quickly turned into a 15-minute kitchen cleaning session. At least this experience also made it possible to test whether spilled smoothie can be washed out of clothing. The answer: Yes, it can.

The taste of the Daily Five in the test:

While typical supermarket smoothies are more for enjoyment, Daily Five is meant to focus on vitamin intake. "Our products are not quite as sweet as the smoothies as we know them," emphasizes founder Christian Lein. After all, he says, the instant smoothies consist only of fruit powder and not of apple or orange juices, which are already quite sweet.

In fact, the test shows that the smoothies taste less sweet than their competitors from the supermarket refrigerated shelves. However, there are differences depending on the variety - and depending on whether the smoothies are mixed with water, milk or vegetable milk.

Berry: The first variety in the test is the Berry smoothie. This consists of banana, sour cherry, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, date, beet and elderberry powders. Berry is the best tasting variety of Daily Five - and fortunately, unlike the other varieties, is included in the starter set not twice, but three times. While the smoothie is less thick than its supermarket competitors, the raspberries, blueberries and strawberries in particular provide an intense berry flavor. Mixed with cow's milk, the smoothie even acquires a pleasantly thick consistency and a slight sweetness. Mixed with oat milk, the Berry variety also tastes good, although a slightly sour aftertaste is a nuisance here.

Exotic: The Exotic smoothie consists of banana, mango, pineapple, carrot, date, passion fruit and acerola powder. It was tested once mixed with water and once with oat milk. In the combination with water, the carrot powder in particular stands out in terms of taste, while the mixture with oat milk gives the smoothie a bit more sweetness. In both blends, despite good flavor, the consistency is a bit of a nuisance - there's one ingredient that isn't liquid and feels a bit like it's frozen when you accidentally bite down on it.

Greens: This variety consists of banana, mango, pineapple, spinach, carrot, acerola, barley grass, date and spirulina powders. Unlike the other two varieties, this one makes a taste reminiscent of other ready-made products that are made of powder. In addition, the taste is not so intense and even completely disappears when the smoothie is prepared with milk. In addition, when the powder is mixed with milk, it does not spread as well.

All three smoothies were still tested by a second person who is a huge fan of the conventional supermarket smoothies. The second tester, who drinks smoothies purely for enjoyment, gave a rather critical verdict, saying that if given the choice, he would at best buy the Berry smoothie. On the other hand, some users on the Trustpilot rating platform are downright enthusiastic about the taste of the smoothies, and one even praises the lack of sweetness - which shows that the vitamin-rich drinks are also a matter of taste. What is unfortunately somewhat negatively noticeable in all three varieties is the smell of the powder.

These are the ingredients of Daily Five:

The advantage of freeze-dried fruit, explains founder Christian Lein, is that the vitamins and nutrients are preserved. Immediately after harvesting, the fruits and vegetables are flash frozen, after which so much air is extracted with the help of a special vacuum container that a strong negative pressure is created. As a result, the water contained in the fruit escapes as water vapor at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius. The liquid content of the fruit is then greatly reduced, to around five percent - this concentrates the ingredients. This means that the fruit and vegetables shrink, but still contain many vitamins and minerals. The downside is that freeze-dried fruit also contains a lot of sugar and is less filling than fresh fruit.

All three varieties contain less sugar per 100 milliliters than many conventional smoothies. By comparison, the True Fruits brand "Triple Pink" smoothie contains 10.7 grams of sugar per 100 milliliters, while the most sugary of the three Daily Five smoothies ("Exoctic") contains 6.7 grams. Also, the Daily Five smoothies have slightly fewer calories than True Fruits' comparison smoothie - so the Exotic smoothie has 41.2 calories per 100 mililiters , the Triple Pink smoothie 53 calories. The calorie and sugar figures only apply to the mixture with water, otherwise you have to add the milk on top.

But what's the deal with the promise that Daily Five smoothies can be used to replace three of the five types of fruit? The reference amount for daily vitamin C intake per day is 80 milligrams, according to the Food Information Regulation - an EU food labeling requirement. The Berry smoothie contains 120 milligrams per serving, the Exotic smoothie 290 milligrams and the Green smoothie 420 milligrams of vitamin C - so at least the vitamin C requirement would already be more than covered. Daily Five thus fulfills its advertising promise. But beware: The need for other vitamins can not be fully met with the help of the smoothies - at least two servings of solid fruits and vegetables must still plan users in everyday life.

How much vitamin requirement is covered by the comparison smoothie from True Fruit, by the way, remains open - because the vitamin amount is not made as transparent there as in the Daily Five smoothies.

Are the smoothies worth the price?

The liquid vitamin supply is not quite cheap. The starter set with seven smoothies and shaker costs 34.99 euros. Since the Smoothies can be mixed - at least in the test - also quite well without Shaker, it does not need it necessarily. For 24.99 euros, there is also a seven-pack without shaker in the online store.

For comparison, the pink True Fruits smoothie costs a total of 17.43 euros for seven bottles of 250 milliliters each. Two bottles with 750 milliliters each and one bottle with 250 milliliters even cost a total of just 10.47 euros. So less than half the money buys the same portion of smoothies - 1750 milliliters in all.

Founder Christian Lein is aware of the high price. "Freeze-drying is by far the most expensive way to preserve fruits and vegetables, but at the same time it gives them the highest nutritional content" he explains. In addition, they would currently still order the sachets in a small batch - which is quite expensive because the fruit powder is usually produced in large quantities. "The more we sell, the larger quantities we can order - and that can also translate into a lower price," he promises.

That's the Startbase bottom line:

The instant smoothies can actually be a useful support in everyday life for anyone who is too lazy or stressed to eat fruit or vegetables five times a day - although not a particularly cheap one. At 24.99 euros, seven 250-milliliter smoothies cost considerably more than comparable products from the supermarket. However, conventional smoothies often consist largely of apple or orange juice. This is where Daily Five scores with its powder made from freeze-dried fruit.

While the smoothies aren't as sweet or delicious, they are all the more purposeful when it comes to replenishing vitamin levels. While the Berry variety tastes really good, there is still room for improvement, especially with the green smoothie. However, the smoothie shaker - basically a glass bottle with a few extras - is easy to replace with a regular water bottle.