HIPPY entrepreneur Craig Sams has never done anything without gusto – so it’s very appropriate that his latest product is named Gusto.

Sams, the co-founder of Green and Black’s chocolate band and Whole Earth Foods, first invented the natural energy drink at a party at the Groucho Club celebrating Whole Earth’s 20th anniversary in the 1980s when he decided to “mix up something intriguing for the alcohol-free drinkers”.

Hurble Burble, as it was then called, became an instant hit with the rave crowd of the 1980s because it gave clubbers a natural way to keep going all night.

The party drink was a “no nasties” 100 per cent natural energy drink with a powerful herbal kick, containing Amazon guarana, African kola nut and 14 Chinese herbs. “People loved it,” said Sams.

His children Rima and Karim spotted the drink’s potential and encouraged their father to bottle it for the masses.

“It did really well in Dutch coffee houses because it meant their customers were upright for longer,” said Sams, who lives in Hastings with his wife Josephine Fairley, his fellow Green and Black’s co-founder.

“Those young people grew up and moved into the Dutch suburbs and they still clung to Gusto. We got an offer from a Dutch company in 2002 to buy the Whole Earth brand and Gusto, and the kids said yes. Unfortunately, the Dutch company ran Gusto down, so a few years ago I bought it back.”

He added: “It was great to get it back. In business, there’s something called vendor’s remorse – when you have sold a business and want to buy it back.”

Since then, Sams has masterminded the development of a range of Gusto sparkling soft drinks using 100 per cent plant-based ingredients.

They include Real Cola is sweetened with blue agave and blends organic spices, essential oils and African kola nut, Naturally Slim Cola, which has the same ingredients as Real Cola but has reduced its calories by using plant-derived sweetener stevia and Lemon Energy, which uses whole crushed organic lemons, Amazon guarana, Siberian ginseng and organic fruit juices.

“We are trying to give people sweetness without insulin complications,” said Sams. “We created a low-calorie cola with a glycemic index of nine, which is half that of other comparable products.”

Once a well-kept secret, Gusto is sold in ten countries, and in more than 200 UK stockists. Tate Galleries has replaced its traditional fizzy drinks range with Gusto.

Through crowdfunding, Gusto Organic has raised £180,000 to expand UK and global sales and develop new products, but Sams plans to raise its target to £600,000.

Born to a farming family in Nebraska in 1944, Sams’s extraordinary career in the food industry began after he found himself in India in 1965 aged 20 and suffering from hepatitis and dysentery. “I felt so terrible,” said Sams. “I travelled to Afghanistan, where I was given unsweetened tea and unleavened bread, and the pain in my liver stopped.”

With his brother Greg, Sams founded organic food company Whole Earth Foods and they launched the UK’s first vegan and macrobiotic restaurant, which served food to T-Rex’s Marc Bolan, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Paul McCartney later credited him with helping “to kickstart the vegetarian food market in Britain”.

The brothers also opened Britain’s first organic natural food store, Ceres Grain Shop, and had a bakery that produced the country’s first sourdough breads.

He and his wife launched Green & Black’s in 1991 and it was bought by Cadbury Schweppes in 2005, with Sams continuing as its president. He is also a director of Duchy Originals Ltd.

He is the author of four books, has been active in organisations including the Soil Association, Slow Food UK and Slow Food Sussex.

Sams and his wife ran the organic bakery Judges in Hastings and now own the Wellington Square Natural Health Centre in Hastings.

He grows vegetables organically in his pottage garden in Hastings and on a nearby smallholding, which also has a watercress bed and woodland.