Johannesburg - When Prime hit the shelves in South Africa, it turned social media upside down and saw endless queues across the country, with thousands of people filling up trolleys to also get a taste of the much-hyped drink.
Prime is a range of sports drinks, drink mixes, and energy drinks created and marketed by YouTubers and internet personalities Logan Paul and KSI.
In South Africa, we also saw the drink being backed by celebrities such as Anele Mdoda, who spoke about it on her Twitter account.
What happened to this much-hyped drink?
Given that the buzz surrounding it lasted for only about a month, it appears that its fame did not persist as long as many were anticipating.
The beverage generated global interest and raised many health concerns.
According to CNN Business, Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the US Food and Drug Administration should investigate the high caffeine content in the canned energy drink as well as its marketing efforts.
Schumer alleged that Prime Energy "has an eye-popping level of caffeine, and that’s giving parents and doctors the jitters for the kids that are targets" and said that another issue is that "most parents haven’t even heard of this stuff that their kids are begging for."
"Prime is born from the reels of social media and the enigmatic world of influencers," Schumer said. "Kids see it on their phones as they scroll, and then they actually have a need for it."
In response, Prime said that its energy drink contains a "comparable amount of caffeine to other top-selling energy drinks, all falling within the legal limit of the countries it’s sold in."
Prime offers two kinds of beverages: Prime Hydration, a sports drink that does not contain caffeine, and Prime Energy, a highly caffeinated drink.
The Conversation reported that the popularity could be explained in part by the popularity of its founders, who have over 39 million subscribers on their main YouTube channels.
"Paul has made videos answering viewer questions and comments. KSI also recently made videos reading and commenting on fans’ posts on Reddit, which included some about the Prime drink," explained The Conversation.
The Star