Our partnership with the University of Leeds brings academic rigour to questions we're already asking in the field. The current focus is carbohydrate oxidation, specifically how the body absorbs and uses different carbohydrate combinations during sustained effort, and what that means for formulation decisions at the ingredient level.

This work connects directly to the science behind our gels. The 1:1 maltodextrin-to-fructose ratio isn't a convention; it's the output of understanding how dual-transporter carbohydrate systems actually behave under real physiological load. Leeds helps us stress-test and deepen that understanding in a controlled environment.

The next phase of the collaboration is in the pipeline: structured user testing around heat training protocols and CoreCtrl efficacy. As athletes push into warmer conditions and higher intensities, we want scientific data, not just field reports on what's happening physiologically. Leeds gives us the infrastructure to ask those questions properly and answer them with credibility.

Arla Foods Ingredients is the performance and ingredients division of Arla, one of the world's largest dairy cooperatives, owned by more than 12,500 farmers across seven countries. AFI specialises in dairy-derived ingredients for sports and clinical nutrition, and brings serious scientific depth to everything it develops.

The collaboration is built around Alistair's direct relationship with Arla and has grown into a structured R&D programme focused on the next generation of recovery products. Dairy proteins, particularly whey, sit at the centre of post-exercise recovery science, and AFI's ingredient portfolio and global research infrastructure give us access to some of the most advanced formulation work happening in that space.

This isn't a sponsorship or a branding arrangement. It's deep ingredient science conducted at a global level, the kind of work that takes time, controlled environments, and serious investment. The outputs will feed into future TrueFuels recovery products as that category develops.

truefuels was selected as part of the Australian Open StartUps 2026 cohort, Tennis Australia's programme for piloting innovative performance products with their professional athlete community. The partnership embeds our products directly into the Tennis Australia Performance team's programme, working alongside their Applied Science Manager and Senior Physical Performance Coach.

Elite tennis is a high-intensity, high-heat environment that looks very different from endurance sport. That's exactly why it matters. Every insight we gather from a sport outside our home discipline sharpens our understanding of what our products actually do under different physiological demands, different effort profiles, different hydration patterns, different recovery windows.

The 2026 pilot also marks the first structured deployment of CoreCtrl in a professional tennis context, a live test of thermoregulation support in conditions that place significant stress on the body's cooling system. What we learn here feeds directly into the next phase of CoreCtrl development.

Official announcement →

Brownlee Fitness is Alistair's coaching operation, structured programmes for athletes ranging from competitive age-groupers to elite competitors. As a testing environment, it gives us something research studies often can't: diverse athletes, at different training loads, across extended periods of time.

Coaches and athletes within Brownlee Fitness use TrueFuels across full training blocks, not isolated sessions. That longitudinal exposure surfaces things short-term testing misses: how the gut adapts over weeks, how performance markers shift across a build phase, how an athlete's relationship with their nutrition changes when the guesswork is removed.

Feedback is structured and qualitative. Alistair is embedded in these conversations, not reviewing a survey after the fact, but in active dialogue with coaches and athletes who tell him what's actually happening.

Moonglu is a British UCI Continental cycling team based in Ripon, North Yorkshire, competing across Europe, Asia, and Africa. They're part of a wider cycling community that has been one of the most active grassroots hubs in the north of England for over a decade.

Cycling imposes different nutritional demands than triathlon or running. Effort profiles, fuelling windows, gut tolerance under sustained power output the variables shift, and so do the performance requirements. Working with Moonglu lets us observe how our products perform in a cycling-specific context and collect feedback grounded in race reality rather than controlled conditions.

Over time, the learnings from this partnership about carbohydrate timing, hydration in multi-hour efforts, and palatability under race pressure will inform how we develop and communicate our products to a broader cycling audience.