This product is one of those released in Kmart’s big push to fill their shelves with their own white label products. They also released a vitamin Water clone, a bottled green tea and 30 other brands. Loop is one of 2 energy drinks, the other being Freefall. Actually, Loop is Freefall, just in a bigger can. the 16 ounces in this can make is slightly better value than the 8oz Freefall, and the packaging is slightly better – but overall this product is still pretty suck.

It’s all about providing choice and value to our customers,” stated Tom O’Boyle, vice president and general merchandise manager of food and consumables for Sears Holdings. “We believe Kmart’s American Fare is now the most complete line of moderately priced, private-label beverage products in the county… From energy drinks, flavored water, vitamin water and teas popular with teens and young adults, to real juice pouches and mini-bottles of fluoridated water for the entire family, there’s a full range of new American Fare beverages.” – there is a distinctive lack of other carbonated beverages here too, probably because of the decline in profit from non-energy-drink carbonated sodas in general.

Packaging:4
Right on the front of the can, emblazoned for the world to see is the huge “I am a discount knockoff drink” badge advertising this as “American Fare”. This drink does better than Freefall, actually looking like an energy drink – albeit a little dated. It lists the website – which the drink is not on, to the phone number, where people who never heard of the drink get confused when you ask about it. There is little nutritional information, and the caffeine content is non-existent. Their only consolation is Target stores did just as bad with their Archer Farms line of energy drinks.

Taste:2
Loop is bad – sour and lacking anything to stand out from the hundreds of others out there. This tastes like it was bought from some third world processing plant and stamped with this logo. The taste is very bitter and empty – at least the sugar free version does not have the empty calories with it too. This is the worst fot he Red Bull clones I have had since 24:7 by prilabs. According to Taurine Rules, the companies make the drink bitter to hide the sourness of the caffeine and other energy ingredients. Seems like in this case they failed to even mask the bitterness – as it comes of both sour, bitter and overall an undrinkable mess.

Buzz/Nutrition:4
15 calories and 0 grams of sugar. taurine, glucuronolactone, caffeine, acesulfame potassium, aspartame, inositol, and B Vitamins. So it is like a Red Bull, only not even close. My guess is there is 80mg of caffeine, but I felt very little buzz after holding my nose and downing the thing. Of course the caffeine content is not listed, and no one at Kmart support lines could even find the product to get me more info. Love the use of aspartame, like they tried extra hard to come up with a bad product with all the wrong ingredients. I guess using one of the dozen better sweeteners that are healthier would confuse the buyer – expecting crap and getting something worthy.