Ambev, AB InBev’s Brazilian subsidiary, is launching Spaten Pro – a no-alcohol beer with whey protein and collagen, the first product of its kind in AB InBev’s global portfolio. It is sold exclusively online through the company’s own delivery app and e-commerce platform.
Ambev describes the goal as creating a new beverage category and expanding the occasions when people reach for beer. Attaching protein, collagen and fitness cues to a beer brand is health washing – marketing that borrows the language of health for a brand whose business is alcohol.

Ambev Starts Online Sales of No-Alcohol Beer With Whey Protein and Collagen”

O Globo reports:

“Announced last month, Ambev will launch tomorrow its first no-alcohol beer with whey protein, in an exclusively online sales strategy. Spaten Pro, with 10 grams of protein, dark colouring and chocolate notes, debuts this Saturday on Zé Delivery, the brewer’s delivery app, in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Next week, the new label will be available across Brazil through e-commerce sites. This is the first beverage of its kind in AB InBev’s (ABI) global portfolio.

“Priced at R$ 12.90, the new label is also fat-free and contains collagen in its composition. The strategy follows the strong demand for wellness-oriented products and reinforces the company’s bet on the wellness segment, which grew 60% in the last quarter. The beverage was developed over five years of research and after more than 100 prototypes. The objective is to inaugurate a new beverage category and expand the occasions for beer consumption, says Ambev.”

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Assessment

Spaten Pro is a beer-branded product aimed at the fitness market: 10 grams of protein per 350 ml can, collagen and “zero fat”. Ambev claims it spent five years and more than 100 prototypes developing the product, and states its purpose openly:

to open a new beverage category and expand the occasions for beer.

The product carries the Spaten beer brand into new settings: fitness routines, weekday training, health-conscious consumers.

The mechanism is health washing, a tactic Movendi International documented in the Big Alcohol Exposed 2024 report: the alcohol industry attaches health signifiers to its brands. Movendi International has reported on how Big Alcohol exploits no-alcohol products and uses the alcohol-free trend for alcohol brand promotion: Spaten is one of Ambev’s beer brands, and every can of Spaten Pro keeps that alcohol brand visible – normalising beer in new settings and among people who avoid alcohol, and marketing it in channels where alcohol marketing rules do not reach.

The Valor piece on Brazil’s “most innovative food companies” describes the machinery behind these launches. Zé Delivery, Ambev’s delivery app, has about five million active users. Valor reports that the company also uses the platform as a testing ground: new products are tried out on the app’s users, and their feedback shapes the product before its large-scale launch.

Ambev sold 3.3% less beer in 2025 compared to the year before, and Big Alcohol globally is searching for growth outside its declining core business. Younger people use less alcohol than earlier generations did at their age, with health among the reasons they give.

That is a norm shift the alcohol industry is working actively to reverse with products and marketing aimed at winning young people back.

A beer brand sold as a fitness product speaks directly to that group. It keeps beer in the lives of consumers the alcohol industry would otherwise lose.

Spaten Pro is the first product of its kind in AB InBev’s global portfolio, and Ambev says it expects to take it to other countries, as it has done with earlier products first tested in Brazil. The Brazilian launch is the trial run for a global one.