Our story

Manna is the return to the source.

000 / Origins

For 50,000 years, the Date Palm has fed runners, travellers, and nomads. Then sports nutrition forgot where it came from.

Walk into any running shop today. Pick up a gel. Read the label. Maltodextrin. Fructose syrup. Artificial flavourings. Acidity regulators. Preservatives. Ingredients that belong in a factory, not in a body working at its limit. The industry optimised for shelf life and cost. It forgot about the human being on the other end.

Manna exists because there is a better way. And it has been here all along.

Five ingredients. Date syrup. Brown rice syrup. Lemon juice. Ginger extract. Sea salt. Nothing else. No maltodextrin. No artificial anything. No proprietary blends. No hidden doses. A 2:1 glucose to fructose ratio designed around how the body actually absorbs energy. Real food, formulated for real performance.

30g of dual transport carbohydrates. 120mg sodium. 120 calories. Made in the UK.

Chapter 01 · Origin

Our founder started running

Manna founder Isaac after the Hackney Half marathon
Isaac, Hackney Half

I started running longer distances and kept under fuelling. The commercial gels never sat right with me, so before runs I'd have a double espresso, a few whole dates, and a pinch of sea salt.

Something clicked. I felt light, properly energised, and for the first time I wasn't crashing afterwards.

As I started running longer and more often, I needed something I could carry with me. So I played around with ratios of date syrup, salt, and caffeine until I had a gel that did on the run what my kitchen version did before it.

That's MANNA.

Chapter 02 · The shift

Why MANNA, why now

Endurance has exploded. Marathons, ultras, Zone 2, run clubs in every city. Not just elite athletes anymore. Millions of people who train like it's part of who they are.

The gels they're using are mostly synthetic. Maltodextrin in a sachet. People are starting to read labels and ask why their fuel doesn't look like food. The same shift that took ultraprocessed snacks out of the kitchen is coming for what we put in our bodies on the run.

And dates, the oldest survival food we know, happen to do exactly what sports science now recommends. Real carbohydrate, fast and slow sugars in natural balance, electrolytes built in, no synthetics.

We're not inventing a category. We're going back to the oldest one, and meeting a generation of athletes who are ready for it.

Five ingredients · nothing else
01Date syrupFructose · minerals
02Brown rice syrupSlow glucose
03Lemon juiceAcidity · flavour
04Ginger extractAnti-nausea
05Sea saltElectrolytes

Nutrition should be simple.

We do not just sell food. We provide Manna for the modern journey.