Advertisement for Welch's Grape Juice (ca. 1910). (Courtesy of The Advertising Archives)
FRUIT JUICE was so closely associated with alcohol that temperance advocates opposed making and drinking it. This view changed in the mid-nineteenth century for a very unusual reason: some churchgoing Christian temperance advocates were faced with the problem of celebrating communion without using wine. One solution was to reinterpret the New Testament, promoting the view that the passages mentioning wine had been mistranslated and misinterpreted. References to wine, some religious scholars decided, actually referred to unfermented wine—that is, grape juice.1 Other theologians disagreed, concluding that this was a complete misrepresentation of scriptures.2
Whatever its religious merits, the idea of “unfermented wine” caught the attention of many temperance advocates, including Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welch, who had been a Methodist minister, a physician, and a dentist in upstate New York. In 1869, Welch—then living in Vineland, New Jersey, where he manufactured dental tools—started a side business producing “unfermented wine for communion purposes” as a service to Methodist ministers who refused to use real wine. Unfermented wine was easy to make, and likely other Methodist ministers did just that. After four years without making much profit, Welch gave up his unfermented wine business.
Enter Thomas Welch’s son, Charles E. Welch, who was also a dentist. In 1875, he restarted making nonalcoholic grape juice on a small scale while continuing to practice dentistry and manufacture dental instruments with his father. As the temperance movement picked up steam in the late nineteenth century, Charles Welch changed the name of his product to Welch’s Grape Juice, and sales increased. Welch realized that his target market was temperance supporters—a potentially large base, if they could be reached. In 1893, he gave up his other occupations and concentrated on growing his business. He set up displays at medical conventions and fairs, launching a wide-ranging marketing campaign that targeted religious, temperance, and medical publications. In medical journals, the company’s advertising emphasized the healthful qualities of the juice; it was recommended for “Typhoid Fever, Pneumonia, Pluritus, Peritonitis, Rheumatism, for Lying-in Patients and for all forms of chronic diseases except Diabetes Melitus.”3 During the following decades, advertising expanded to include ads in national magazines such as Collier’s, Red Book, Cosmopolitan, McClure’s, and Good Housekeeping. Other juice makers followed in Welch’s footsteps, and the American fruit juice industry was born.
Background
American colonists enjoyed the fruit they found on native trees and bushes, such as cranberries, grapes and persimmons; they also brought favorite fruit varieties over from England and planted them in their new homes. In the northern middle colonies, apples and cherries predominated; pears, peaches, and a variety of other fruit grew farther south. In season, fruit was eaten fresh, cooked into desserts and sauces, and preserved in the form of jams and jellies. Where the humidity was low, fruit could be dried for winter use, while apples could be stored for months in cold cellars. Still, by far the most extensive use of fruit in the colonies was for making juice—which was merely an intermediate step in its conversion to alcohol. At ambient temperatures, fruit juice begins to ferment almost immediately; given the right conditions, it becomes apple cider, for instance, or perry (pear cider) or mobby (peach cider). These ciders can then be distilled to create much more potent fruit brandies. Alcoholic beverages could be preserved for months or even years. In New England, the making, selling, and exporting of hard cider was an important economic resource.
Colonists knew how to stop the fermentation of fruit juice, at least temporarily, if they cared to: they had only to boil it. Most Americans had no interest in unfermented fruit juice, and there was very little market for it. Religious sects aside, most American preferred their fruit beverages with at least a bit of a “kick” to them. In the 1830s, the Shakers developed a method for boiling juice at low temperatures through the use of a vacuum pan; this technique condensed and preserved the juice so that it could be stored for longer periods.4 Likewise, the Oneida community (a religious commune in Oneida, New York) bottled and sold condensed fruit juice.5 However, these were minor operations with limited sales.
Unfermented grape juice was simple enough to make, and recipes for it appeared frequently in nineteenth-century cookbooks. This recipe from the Centennial Buckeye Cook Book (1876) uses sugar as a preservative; the result was probably used as a flavoring and not directly as a beverage:
UNFERMENTED WINE FOR COMMUNION
Weigh the grapes, pick from the stems, put in a porcelain kettle, add very little water and cook till stones and pulp separate; press and strain through a thick cloth, return juice to kettle, add three pounds sugar to every ten pounds of grapes; heat to simmering, bottle hot and seal. This makes one gallon, and is good.6
In 1893, a breakthrough for unfermented grape juice came when thousands of people sampled Welch’s Grape Juice at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. When sales outstripped the supply of Concord grapes available at Welch’s company in Vineland, New Jersey, Charles moved his operation to Westfield, New York, in 1897. The business was later incorporated as the Welch’s Grape Juice Company.7
Welch took the popular temperance slogan, “The lips that touch wine will never touch mine,” and gave it a promotional spin: “The lips that touch Welch’s are all that touch mine.” Welch’s Grape Juice received widespread publicity in 1913 when prohibition advocate William Jennings Bryan, then secretary of state under President Woodrow Wilson, served Welch’s Grape Juice at a dinner given in honor of the British ambassador, much to the ambassador’s dismay. It gained even more visibility in 1914, when Josephus Daniels, the secretary of the navy, banned alcoholic beverages aboard Navy ships and replaced them with Welch’s Grape Juice.8
When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, Welch’s and other fruit juice producers faced major competition with the soft drink business; soda cost just one-quarter as much as fruit juice to manufacture. To distinguish his product from carbonated sugar water, Charles Welch advertised his grape juice as a “therapeutic agent” with significant health benefits. Specifically, the advertisement claimed that treated “constipation, abdominal plethora, in nephritis, renal congestion, edema, cardiac disease and scorbutic conditions in children and infants, hyperacidity, acidemia, anemia and allied conditions.”9 Indeed, many medical professionals endorsed fruit juice as very beneficial. One cited fruit juice’s “thinning effect upon the blood, thus diminishing its viscidity, and [it is] consequently an excellent drink for arteriosclerotics.” Others reported that juices were good for fever, gout, and diabetes, and had a “stimulating action upon the bowels.”10
Tomato Cocktail
The Welch’s Grape Juice Company branched out in 1923 and began producing tomato juice. But despite the company’s success with grape juice, the public just did not take to tomato juice.11 Tomato juice had been used since the mid-nineteenth century for cooking. Recipes for tomato cocktails appeared in the 1890s. The Manhattan Club in New York made its “cocktail” from oyster juice, Tabasco sauce, chili pepper sauce, ketchup, lemon juice, and tomato juice.12 Some credit the tomato cocktail to the American-born chef Louis Perrin. In 1917, Perrin served tomato juice to guests at a resort in French Lick Springs, Indiana. Chicago businessmen vacationing there purportedly spread the word about the tomato juice “cocktail,” a nonalcoholic beverage that they had enjoyed at the resort in lieu of stronger mixtures. Others credit Chicago’s Ernest Byfield, who owned the Ambassador East Hotel and College Inn Food Products Company. He reportedly tasted a tomato cocktail while visiting a friend and put his chefs to work trying to make a commercial product out of it. They added celery and more lemon juice, and sold 60,000 cases in first month.13 It was praised by temperance advocates and medical professionals alike; when Prohibition arrived, it was also praised by those opposed to Prohibition who used it as a cocktail mixer.
Tomato juice cocktails were heralded during a Tri-State Packers Convention at Philadelphia’s Adelphia Hotel in 1922. A can manufacturer served tomato juice to those attending the annual banquet in hopes that they would consider canning the novel beverage. Like grape juice, tomato juice was touted as a health drink and was even served in hospitals. According to Dr. Hugo Friedstein of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, the vitamin content of tomato juice did “marvelous things in cleansing the system.”14
Although canned tomato juice was growing more popular by the 1920s, none of the existing commercial products had a consistently appealing color and flavor.15 Another problem with canned tomato juices was that the solids separated and settled at the bottom of the can or glass when served. In 1924, an Indianapolis pediatrician discussed this problem with his friend Ralph Kemp of Frankfort, Indiana. Kemp had majored in agricultural engineering at the University of Wisconsin, and at the time he worked with his father, John Kemp, operating a canning plant. Intrigued with the challenge, the Kemps began experimenting to find a way to break up the tomato pulp into minute particles that would float in the juice. Their solution was to use a machine called a viscolizer, which was previously employed in the manufacture of ice cream. The device required a great deal of adaptation to process tomato juice successfully, but after four years of work, the Kemps finally succeeded in producing a smooth, pleasingly textured tomato juice that did not separate. In 1928, they initiated the first national advertising campaign for “Kemp’s Tomato Juice.”16 This new kind of tomato juice was an instant hit with the American public.
The H. J. Heinz Company and the Campbell Soup Company moved quickly into high gear to produce it. Campbell converted part of its Camden Plant No. 2, built during the 1920s for making tomato soup, into a juice factory. All that remained was to determine which tomato variety was best for making juice. After some experimentation, Campbell’s Tomato Juice came on the market in 1931. Until 1932, almost all the tomatoes grown by Campbell were used for making soup, but by 1935 about 30 percent of its tomatoes went into making juice.17 By the following year, cookbooks began to include recipes naming Campbell’s Tomato Juice as an ingredient.18
Canned tomato juice received yet a further boost when Prohibition ended in 1933. A cocktail made of tomato juice and vodka was probably first served at Harry’s Bar in Paris by a bartender named Ferdinand “Pete” Petiot. Petiot moved to New York City in 1933 and introduced his new creation at the bar of the St. Regis Hotel. Tinkering with his original recipe, he added Worcestershire sauce and called the resulting drink a Bloody Mary. The drink was supposedly named for Queen Mary I of England, who had hundreds of Protestants burned at the stake during her reign in the mid-sixteenth century. Others claimed that the Mary in question was Petiot’s girlfriend. Whoever it was named for, it rapidly became a success. American writer Ernest Hemingway boasted in a 1941 letter that he had personally introduced Petiot’s Bloody Mary into bars in Hong Kong.19
Shortly after the end of World War II, the Campbell Soup Company purchased V-8 Vegetable Juice from Standard Brands. V-8 was a blend of eight vegetables—particularly tomatoes, but also carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress, and spinach—along with several flavor enhancers. It had been conceived in 1933 by W. G. Peacock of Evanston, Illinois; several people worked on the formula and Peacock marketed it in 1936 under the name “Veg-min Juice.” At the first store that sold it, a clerk suggested that they change its name to V-8. (Later, the hyphen was dropped and the product became V8 Cocktail Vegetable Juice.)
Peacock had produced V-8 entirely by hand; the yield was only twenty-five cases per day, which did not even come close to meeting demand. Peacock lacked the funds to advertise V-8, and he had ideas for other products that he wanted to develop. To raise cash, Peacock sold the V-8 formula to the Loudon Packing Company in 1938; founded by Charles F. Loudon, the firm had manufactured tomato juice for a time in the 1890s. In 1943, the Loudon Packing Company was purchased by Standard Brands. By the time Campbell purchased V8 juice from Standard Brands in 1948, the product’s total annual sales generated $5 million.20
Liquid Sunshine
Colonial Americans loved the flavor of citrus fruit, particularly oranges, lemons, and limes. In colonial times, the fruit was imported from Bermuda and the Bahamas, so only the well-to-do could afford it. Moreover, citrus fruits were available only during their growing season, which was January through June. As advertised in a 1742 newspaper published in Salem, Massachusetts, “Extraordinary good and very fresh Orange Juice” cost $1 per gallon.21 The price does not sound like much by today’s standards, but it was a small fortune at the time.
When the United States purchased Florida from Spain in 1821, the region’s tropical climate made it possible for citrus to be grown domestically. But the fruit still had to be transported north by ship, so prices remained high. Once the United States acquired California during the Mexican-American War, oranges were grown there, too; however, there was no way to ship them back east. Most oranges were eaten fresh, squeezed for flavoring beverages and baked goods, or made into marmalade and other preserves.
When the second transcontinental railroad system was completed in 1883, it became possible to transport oranges from California to the rest of the nation. Technological improvements, such as ventilating and icing, decreased spoilage, and the citrus industry in southern California took off. Rapid expansion, however, generated problems. Orange trees take about seven years to mature, so growers generated little income from their groves during that time. As the market for oranges increased, growers became convinced that the market would continue to rapidly grow. They planted more and more trees until, by the early twentieth century, the market was glutted with oranges during the high season (November to May), and prices decreased.22 Production greatly exceeded demand, and growers were in financial straits.
The solution was to advertise, but it was almost impossible for individual growers to advertise their product because both retailers and consumers considered fruit to be a generic item rather than a name brand. The solution was grower cooperatives. In 1893, California fruit growers joined together to form a cooperative; they adopted the brand name Sunkist in 1908. Then Sunkist contracted Lord & Thomas, an advertising firm in Chicago, to help increase consumer demand and sell more fruit. A small advertising campaign was conducted in Iowa, and an increase in sales of oranges was promising. This encouraged Sunkist to launch a major national promotional campaign, and sales of oranges rose.23
One dimension of this campaign was to increase sales by promoting orange juice. Beginning in 1914, the Sunkist co-op established orange juice stands throughout the country; it also encouraged soda fountains, restaurants, and hotels to put the beverage on their menus.24 Sunkist even distributed leaflets on how boys could set up orange or lemonade stands.
But extracting the juice from the orange created a mess, and it took too much time. Businesses charged a premium for orange juice and sales were limited because the price of orange juice was much greater than other beverages. So Sunkist worked with manufacturers to make a round, hand-powered glass juice extractor; in 1916, Sunkist launched a major promotional campaign for the affordable 10-cent orange reamer. Advertisements in magazines, such as the Saturday Evening Post, were headlined “Drink an Orange.” These ads also proclaimed that orange juice was “a delicious beverage” that was “healthfulness itself.” Within a short time, 210,000 juice extractors were sold (some estimates run as high as 1 to 3 million).25 Then in the 1920s, Sunkist produced a heavy-duty electrical juice extractor for soda fountains, cafeterias, and restaurants. Orange sales soared, and this was only the beginning.
Sunkist increased its advertising and sales soared. In 1919, the co-op published full-page magazine advertisements that reached some 62 million readers. Sunkist also supplied grocery stores with 5 million flyers and 4,200 display boxes, and sent out 176,000 promotional recipe books, 100,000 calendars, and 15,000 recipe cards. In 1924, the co-op advertised in 11 national publications, reaching 189 million subscribers, and in 141 newspapers with 109 million readers. The Sunkist co-op placed signs in 40,000 trolley cars and on subway cars in New York, Chicago, and Boston; 2.6 million brochures were distributed to schools and other educational institutions. Sunkist went even further by sponsoring a half-hour program on radio, which was in its infancy; it also produced two films that were shown to 7,000 women’s clubs and cooking classes. The co-op distributed 100 million promotional brochures proclaiming that “the juice of oranges has been known for years as one of the most healthful of natural foods. All physicians know it. All dietitians. All food experts. It is not theory. The healthfulness of orange juice is fact. Science has proved it in many ways, by many definite and conclusive tests.” More specifically, orange juice was “rich in vitamines particularly Vitamine C. It should be fed to babies,” and it made “all other foods more efficient by aiding in releasing the full nourishment of those foods for complete assimilation by the body.” In addition, orange juice helped “to effect good digestion and assimilation” and it rendered “one of the most valuable services of any food we know.”26
The Sunkist cooperative almost doubled its promotions, reaching 311 million magazine subscribers in 1929. Many of these print advertisements promoted orange juice at breakfast and the use of lemon juice and lemonade during the rest of the day. Sunkist also promoted the idea that babies should be consuming fruit juice all day.27 The co-op had expended almost $12 million in promoting its products, and much of this focused on fruit juices. As a result, Sunkist became one of the country’s best-known brand names.28
Orange juice continued to be sold in fruit stands across America. One operator was Julius Fried, who sold fresh-squeezed orange juice on the streets of Los Angeles in 1925. Fried wanted to upgrade his operation by opening a store, so he approached Willard Hamlin, a real estate agent. They went into partnership and opened a store in downtown Los Angeles in 1926. Fresh orange juice upset Hamlin’s stomach, so he experimented by adding various ingredients, including milk, sugar, crushed ice, vanilla, egg whites, and various powdered mixes. Hamlin finally came up with a special formula that resulted in a frothy, creamy beverage, which they called an Orange Julius. Sales were good. Hamlin gave up his real estate business and focused on franchising their operation. By the time the Depression began in 1929, there were about 100 Orange Julius stores from Los Angeles to Boston. The company contracted during the Depression and World War II, but rapidly expanded during 1950s, targeting especially shopping centers and later malls.29
Meanwhile, Florida growers followed Sunkist’s lead, forming the Florida Citrus Exchange in 1909 and advertising their products, albeit on a much smaller scale.30 Their promotion emphasized the therapeutic qualities of lemons and oranges. In addition to the claims made by Sunkist, the Florida Citrus Exchange declared that oranges and grapefruit were “rich in cellulose” and therefore a good laxative. As a rousing conclusion, the advertisement proclaimed that “oranges and grapefruit should never be limited since they are beneficial in all practical amounts.”31
By the outbreak of World War II, the hundreds of millions of dollars that citrus co-ops had spent on advertising paid off. Largely as a result of such advertising and promotion, millions of Americans became convinced that their health depended on drinking a glass of orange juice at breakfast every day. Citrus consumption increased threefold from 1920 to 1940, and much of this increase was due to orange juice.32 Commenting on this enthusiasm for orange juice during this period, historian Richard Hooker concluded that “never before had a food habit been adopted so quickly by so many people.”33
Yet, growers still had a glut of oranges and, unless refrigerated, the oranges turned to mush in a few weeks. They needed to find a way to make orange juice available throughout the year. One possibility was canned orange juice. Growers had canned and bottled juice since the 1880s, but sales of these juices were modest. By the early twentieth century, the annual per capita consumption of bottled and canned orange juice was only about a half a gallon. Growers increased their distribution of canned orange juice through grocery stores and soda fountains, but the product failed to catch on. By the early 1930s, however, new methods of canning orange juice improved its flavor, and by 1935 sales had reached almost 2 million cases. By 1940, annual per capita consumption of canned orange juice in the United States was more than seven gallons per person.34 This was modestly successful until World War II arrived and the war effort needed metal (such as that used for orange juice cans). Was there some other way to preserve orange juice?
Attempts to concentrate orange juice began in 1915,35 and fruit juices made from concentrate were marketed during the 1920s. The juices were shipped mainly by truck to dairies, where fresh water was added and the reconstituted juice was packaged in cardboard cartons or glass bottles. Dairy companies used their distribution systems to sell the reconstituted juice. By 1925, however, annual consumption of orange juice concentrate was slightly more than three ounces per person. Despite the unprecedented increase in the sale of oranges and canned orange juice during the late 1920s and early 1930s, the sale of frozen orange juice concentrate lagged far behind, although it was produced by a number of companies during the 1930s.36 Richard M. Nixon, the future American president, invested in one of these companies in 1937. Like many other such frozen juice ventures, the one Nixon invested in failed two years later.37
Americans can hardly be blamed for rejecting early forms of frozen orange juice; when reconstituted, its appearance and flavor were not very appealing. There were also several distribution problems. Refrigerated trucks that could carry frozen orange juice to dairies were in short supply. Supermarkets had very limited space in their freezer cases, which were a recent innovation in stores. In addition, consumers did not understand how to handle frozen orange juice, and the iceboxes and refrigerators of the time did a poor job of keeping foods frozen. The concentrate was often thawed and refrozen several times before being reconstituted and poured into a glass, which contributed to the poor quality of frozen orange juice in the era before World War II.
What was the best way to get vitamin C to American armed forces in the thick of war? This was a vital question for the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Corps. Under other circumstances, the answer would have been to dispatch supplies of citrus fruit, but it was not feasible to send vast quantities of oranges, lemons, or grapefruit to millions of soldiers, many fighting thousands of miles from the U.S. mainland. Faced with this problem, scientists developed a process for making powdered orange juice that could be included in a soldier’s rations; all the soldier had to do was add water. Like other components of those meals, however, the powdered juice was almost universally detested by the troops. Canned citrus juice was available, but it was bulky and heavy and therefore difficult to transport long distances. But more important, it was wartime, so every possible scrap of metal was needed for the war effort and could not be squandered for making juice cans.
The obvious solution to the military’s need for vitamin C was a vitamin pill or tablet, but the Quartermaster Corps determined that the pills would not survive under the diverse conditions where the soldiers were fighting: in jungles, deserts, extreme cold, and high humidity.38 Some researchers focused their efforts on making a frozen orange juice concentrate. This had been tried and marketed before the war, but with dismal results. When reconstituted, the juice turned an unappetizing ruddy brown. Worse yet, it tasted bitter, with strong off-flavors; it was so awful that some soldiers referred to it as “battery acid,” according to citrus historian Thomas B. Mack.39
Scientists at the Florida Citrus Commission, working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Citrus Products Station in Winter Haven, Florida, set to work on a better frozen juice concentrate in 1943. After months of experimentation, they came up with a solution: they mixed the vacuum-evaporated concentrate with freshly extracted juice and then froze it. When reconstituted, the beverage looked and tasted almost like canned orange juice, which, although not great, was certainly better than the alternatives. As a concentrate, it had a smaller volume and weight than did canned juice, making shipping more economical.40
Another effort to create fruit concentrate was launched by Dr. Robert James, a former research director for both Parke Davis and DuPont, thought he could solve that problem. After receiving a small grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, James set up a modest research facility in Dunedin, Florida. Because it was wartime, he had little equipment, but he cobbled together a few ramshackle buildings and launched Citrus Concentrates, Inc. With three lab assistants, James developed fruit concentrates, which were shipped to England during the war. He also converted the byproducts—the seeds, skin, and pulp—into useful products. By 1944, James had succeeded in making a frozen juice concentrate suitable for commercial use, and he supplied it to a drugstore chain in Washington, D.C. When the frozen concentrate was reconstituted and served at soda fountains, customers reported that it tasted almost like fresh-squeezed juice. Because the concentrate was easier for the chain to handle and could be available all year, the chain sold a lot of frozen orange juice.41
The success of this frozen juice concentrate was an eye-opener for Florida orange growers. James’s facility burned down in 1945, but his work set off a scramble in the Florida juice industry. Experimenters improved on the process that James developed and patented it.
When the war ended, one company, Vacuum Foods, began producing frozen orange juice concentrate. During the next two years, the company lost $450,000. In 1948, the company changed its name to the Minute Maid Company, and the brand name for the orange juice concentrate became Minute Maid. This was the right name at the right time: the American economy was booming and so were babies. Busy parents were interested in convenience, and the company felt sure that they would prefer mixing a pitcher of frozen orange juice to squeezing oranges every morning. Minute Maid launched a major advertising campaign, which helped the company earn profits of $179,865 in the first year. Meanwhile, in October 1948, crooner and movie star Bing Crosby signed on to promote Minute Maid frozen orange juice. Crosby also invested in the company and took a seat on its board of directors. Minute Maid sales soared,42 and the fortunes of other frozen orange juice companies rose as well. By 1950, Americans were drinking 1.2 billion pounds of frozen citrus juice; ten years later, that had more than quadrupled to 4.9 billion pounds.43
During the 1945/1946 growing season, 225,000 gallons of frozen concentrate were manufactured. That was not much by any standard, but the frozen juice concentrate earned good reviews from suppliers in some cities. As a result, manufacturers upped production; as the new product became more widely available, more Americans tried it and liked what they tasted. The big news was that it tasted so different from, and so much better than, the frozen juice made before the war. Newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and magazines such as Reader’s Digest picked up the story. Distributors soon reported that frozen juice concentrate—mainly orange juice—accounted for about 30 percent of their total frozen food sales. By 1949, sales of concentrated fruit juices hit almost 10 million gallons.44
Meanwhile, things were changing in the grocery business and in the American home. During the 1930s, the first supermarkets opened, and their low prices quickly crushed many small grocery stores. After the war, large supermarkets were able to invest in capacious frozen food cases that could hold a much wider variety of products. At the same time, refrigerated trucks became common, making it possible to deliver frozen food without having it thaw en route.
Minute Maid had lots of competition in the frozen orange juice business. In 1947, Anthony T. Rossi launched the Manatee River Packing Company in Bradenton, Florida. Rossi began producing frozen fruit juices in 1952 and branded them “Tropicana Pure Premium.” The line was so successful that in 1957 Rossi renamed the company Tropicana Products, Inc. Both Tropicana and Minute Maid did so well that they eventually were swallowed up by larger companies. Minute Maid was sold to the Coca-Cola Company in 1960; Tropicana was acquired by PepsiCo in 1998.
Today, an estimated 95 percent of the citrus fruit grown in the United States goes into making juice. The nation also imports a large percentage of juice concentrate from other countries, especially Brazil. In 2010/2011, Americans drank 4.5 gallons of orange juice per capita.45
Postscript
Thomas Welch died in 1903 in Philadelphia. When his son Charles died in 1926, Welch’s Grape Juice languished. It was acquired by the National Grape Cooperative Association in 1954. Welch Foods—the manufacturing and marketing arm of the co-op—bottles, cans, and freezes grape juice and related products. In 2006, Campbell extended its V8 brand line to create V-Fusion beverages flavored with fruit, such as acai berries, pomegranates, bananas, peaches, and mangos.
Willard Hamlin bought out Julius Fried and continued to grow his Orange Julius franchise. When he retired in 1967, he sold his 700 franchises to International Industries. Hamlin died in 1987. Today the company is owned by Warren E. Buffett’s investment group, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.
As a result of the acquisition of both Minute Maid and Tropicana by soft drink giants, with their bottling and distribution practices, single-serving cans of fruit juice are now sold in vending machines and stores alongside bottles and cans of soda.
