Naked Juices Are Now Natural Again

The Untold Truth Of Naked Juice

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Yous know Naked Juice. Y'all've likely noticed it in the libation at the corner convenience store near some of the "healthier" drink options. Y'all might've seen information technology in the produce section of your local grocery store (because that proximity to produce ways something's salubrious, correct?). You may have even enjoyed your fair share of Naked Juice products — smoothies or otherwise — over the years. Only do you really know what's in every bottle of Naked Juice? Or where the brand comes from? Or even why it's named "Naked Juice?" (Hint: it'due south not considering the fruits and veggies are naked.)

We're breaking down everything you demand to know before y'all sip on your side by side bottle of Naked Juice, from the company's apprehensive beginnings to its founders' big interruption to its scattering of large controversies, as well every bit all the good things the brand is doing now. Hither'due south the untold truth of Naked Juice.

Naked Juice was founded in 1983

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Let's start correct at the showtime, shall we? Naked Juice was founded in Santa Monica, California, in 1983 past Jimmy Rosenberg and David Bleeden (via The Acorn). The two bandmates needed a job to back up their music careers and started making juice later Rosenberg's begetter saw an advertizing for a juicer. After talking to some local businesses, they found out that there was, in fact, a demand for fresh juice in their area, so they started making and selling their juices out of the dorsum of a sub shop.

They'd wake up at 3 a.m. each morning time to purchase their oranges from the local produce purveyors and so get to piece of work, hawking their wares not but out of the sub shop, but besides along the Santa Monica beach. Soon, Bleeden and Rosenberg realized they had a success on their hands. And as for the name, well, information technology was a cheeky nod to the two young men'south analogousness for sunbathing in the nude (or so the Naked Juice lore goes).

The founders left the company early

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Jimmy Rosenberg and David Bleeden may have started Naked Juice, but they didn't hang around the company for long. The 2 founders sold the visitor in 1988 (simply five years later on launching it) to Chiquita (via The Acorn). Following the sale, Bleeden went to rehab for a drug habit. He revitalized his career in the early on 2000s, turning his attending to an investment company that focused on internet products earlier getting into the consulting biz (via LinkedIn).

Rosenberg, meanwhile, decided to stay in the juice industry. In 1995, he founded Evolution Fresh, which specializes in cold-pressed juices and smoothies. (Goodnature referred to him every bit a "serial juice entrepreneur.") Evolution Fresh was more of a long-booty project for Rosenberg, who stuck with the company until it was caused by Starbucks in 2011 (he's notwithstanding considered the brand's "chief juice officer"). Though you might not be able to find Evolution Fresh products everywhere you can find Naked Juice drinks, they are available in most Starbucks and Target locations.

Naked Juice was owned by PepsiCo

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Naked Juice'south large break as a brand came in 2006, when PepsiCo agreed to purchase the company from individual disinterestedness business firm North Castle Partners (the sale was made official the following January). North Castle had purchased Naked Juice in 2000 from Chiquita subsidiary California 24-hour interval-Fresh Foods (via Potable Online) and gave the juice a rebrand that it said better communicated "the product's raw and witty graphic symbol combined with its superior product quality and taste." Subsequently 6 years of the house's buying, Naked Juice boasted sales of $150 million-plus, a nationwide reach, and 25 different products — merely PepsiCo would be able to take the brand even further.

While nether North Castle's command, nearly of Naked Juice'southward marketing had been grassroots-based with the focus on wellness-nutrient venues, PepsiCo had the ability to distribute Naked Juice products on a wider scale, specially since, around the same time, the company was making a conscious attempt to expand its healthy snacks and drinks portfolio; it also purchased Stacy's Pita Chips and IZZE Beverages inside the same twelvemonth (via Reuters).

Naked Juice underwent a major rebrand

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Simply prior to PepsiCo's acquisition of Naked Juice, the brand was overhauled. In 2005, leadership wanted to market the juices' health benefits even further. The brand'southward biggest claim was what it called "the pound promise," a guarantee that a pound of produce was included in every unmarried bottle of Naked Juice (via BevNet). Each bottle of juice received new packaging that showed the verbal corporeality of produce, and what types of produce, were included in the product, as well as info on ingredients that Naked Juice chosen "boosts" — things like actress vitamins or proteins that were added in.

"We designed our new packaging to make the buying determination easier for the consumer past listing the verbal corporeality of fruit and boosts in each bottle," said Kimber Ward, managing director of marketing for Naked Juice, at the time of the reboot. "Our customers capeesh the what-you lot-see-is-what-you-go attitude of our brand and nosotros wanted to extend that feeling into our packaging." Unfortunately, as we'll run into in a scrap, Naked Juice's marketing tactics may accept made the buying determination a little too easy for consumers.

In that location is a wide variety of Naked Juice products

Equally part of the visitor's major rebrand, Naked Juice also began introducing some new, juice-side by side products. Naked Juice jumped on the super-foods tendency, offering a 100% pure pomegranate juice touted for its antioxidant content. They too introduced a pomegranate blueberry juice, thus combining "2 power fruits" in i juice drink (via BevNet).

A few years later, Naked Juice would release a commencement for the industry — a smoothie that contained probiotics. Unveiled in 2008, Naked Juice Probiotic smoothies were described as 100% juice with added probiotics equally well as prebiotics, to both add and aid practiced digestive bacteria (via Nutrient Processing). Today, the make is anchored by four main lines: Motorcar (to "replenish & recharge"), Core (to "nourish & balance"), the protein-packed Naked Plus which includes a Tropical Mango smoothie with probiotics, and the non-fruit Indulgent Protein with chocolate and vanilla flavors. Beyond the smoothies, Naked also packages its own line of coconut water.

Naked juice was forced to remove the claim it was 'all natural'

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PepsiCo was able to abound Naked Juice past leaps and bounds, sure — simply the company's efforts to attain those goals besides drew some unwanted attention. Some food professionals began wondering just how healthy Naked Juice really was and whether the brand's claims were actually truthful. For one particular lawsuit (yes, there were others), at that place was a filing made against Naked Juice stating the brand's "all natural" claims were wrong, every bit some of the vitamins added to the drinks are technically constructed and human-fabricated, pregnant the juices aren't actually 100% natural (via Us Today). Every bit a issue of the lawsuit (which was filed in 2013), Naked Juice removed the phrase "all natural" from its packaging and paid $9 1000000 as part of the settlement.

Only was Naked Juice's use of the term "natural" really all that bad? It'south a fleck of a grey expanse, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which told USA Today at the time that information technology doesn't accept a clear definition for what is or isn't a natural product.

Naked Juice has faced multiple lawsuits

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Naked Juice's legal woes would proceed in 2016. This fourth dimension around, according to Business Insider, the Center for Scientific discipline in the Public Interest filed a lawsuit challenge that Naked Juice's marketing tactics across the board — not just when using words or phrases like "all natural" — portrayed the drinks as healthier than they really were. The Centre noted that the company's Kale Blazer juice, for example, is packaged so that information technology appears to be filled with leafy greens and other healthful goodness, when, in reality, the main ingredients are orange and apple tree juices, which the Center described every bit "cheap" and "nutrient-poor."

However, the Center didn't necessarily have an issue with the juices being non-that-healthy overall; instead, information technology just wanted Naked Juice to be more transparent about what information technology'due south including in their products. The lawsuit was ultimately settled when PepsiCo signed off on changing some of its marketing and packaging going into 2017.

According to Beverage Daily, PepsiCo agreed to revise packaging to more clearly and accurately show and describe a production'due south ingredients, reduce the font size on its "no sugar added" phrasing on packaging, add together a disclaimer that the drinks are not considered low-calorie, and more prominently display caloric content.

Several Naked Juice products incorporate more sugar than soda

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Ane complaint from the Centre for Science in the Public Interest'due south lawsuit was that Naked Juice's marketing and packaging gives the thought that a Naked Juice product is a healthier consumer choice than, say, a soda, when that'due south not the case at all (via Business Insider). The Center pointed out a 15.2-ounce bottle of the make'south Pomegranate Blueberry juice (billed every bit a as a no-saccharide-added product) contains 61 grams of carbohydrate, which is about 50% more sugar than what you'll find in a 12-ounce tin of Pepsi.

Of grade, the 2016 lawsuit didn't result in Naked Juice actually irresolute any of its ingredients, so you'll still observe a large amount of saccharide in much of the brand'southward products. Today, Naked's Blueish Car Boosted Smoothie, for instance, contains 320 calories and 55 grams of sugar. The brand'due south Protein Greens juice contains 400 calories and l grams of carbohydrate. Only Naked'south Chocolate Protein smoothie contains more calories, at 410 calories per bottle and 47 grams of carbohydrate. Insufficiently, a 12-ounce can of original Coca-Cola only includes 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar.

There was a rumor Naked Juice contains formaldehyde

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Sketchy nutrition claims are one matter, merely in 2017 a rumor was going effectually on Facebook stating that Naked Juice products contain formaldehyde, which, yes, is the same stuff morticians use to preserve expressionless bodies.

According to Snopes, the accusation was traced back to a Facebook user who said, "Friends don't allow friends drink formaldehyde." The user went on to detail PepsiCo'southward 2013 lawsuit that resulted in removing the "natural" label from Naked Juice products. She noted, "They actually were plant to accept a agglomeration of nasty chemicals in them including formaldehyde (keeps your dead body preserved — no thanks), Fibersol-2 ('a soluble corn fiber that acts every bit a depression-calorie bulking agent'), fructooligosaccharides (an alternative sweetener), other bogus ingredients, such as calcium pantothenate (synthetically produced from formaldehyde), and genetically-modified soy."

While the post was shared more than than 150,000 times and definitely got some traction, Snopes was quick to debunk the claim, noting that calcium pantothenate is a synthetic calcium common salt course of Vitamin B5. While the product'southward chemical synthesis (the process past which products are derived via chemic reactions) does require formaldehyde, it is in no way related to the concluding product. To be clear, at that place's no straight formaldehyde in Naked Juice products.

The company champions multiple charitable organizations

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For all the bad stuff that's popped up surrounding Naked Juice, the brand still does a lot of good. Today, Naked Juice partners with a number of sustainability programs and nonprofits and has been making a concerted effort for the last decade to reduce its carbon footprint.

All of Naked Juice's bananas and pineapples are sourced via Rainforest Alliance-certified farms. The Rainforest Alliance works with farmers in other countries to raise the agricultural manufacture while still protecting the world'southward biodiversity and sustainability. Naked Juice also works with Wholesome Wave, which makes fresh and local produce more accessible and affordable to those in need. Together, Naked Juice and Wholesome Wave have provided more than a million servings of produce to American families.

Over the last few years, Naked Juice has too switched from truck aircraft to train shipping, a move the visitor says reduced its carbon footprint by more than 5,000 tons, or about the aforementioned corporeality of carbon that would require 3,119 football game fields of forest to eradicate it from the atmosphere.

Naked Juice uses 100% rPET bottles

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While various lawsuits forced Naked Juice to alter the claims on its label, in this detail example, the company itself took the initiative to make positive changes to its packaging. In 2009, Naked Juice became the outset nationally distributed juice company to use 100% rPET(recyclable polyethylene terephthalate) bottles. By 2011, the bottles, dubbed the "reNEWabottle," were rolled out beyond the entire Naked Juice product line (via Packaging Digest).

So what exactly does this hateful? The reNEWabottles are made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic, which essentially removes more than vii million pounds of new plastics from grocery store shelves each twelvemonth, while also saving up to 12,000 cubic meters of landfill space. The determination to switch to reNEWabottles as well reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 35%, a reduction equal to 500,000 gallons of gas per year. Keeping the Naked Juice canteen cycle going is as simple as consumers recycling each empty Naked Juice bottle rather than tossing them into the trash.

Naked Juice and PepsiCo are splitting up

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Naked Juice will presently no longer be under the PepsiCo umbrella. Every bit of August 2021, the mega-conglomerate agreed to sell Naked Juice and its other juice brands (including Tropicana) for $3.3 billion to individual equity firm PAI Partners (via The Street). In an ironic plow of events, while PepsiCo originally purchased Naked Juice as an attempt to expand its line of healthy selection products, this fourth dimension, the visitor says it so ld Naked Juice and its other juice brands to focus instead on healthy snacks and nothing-calorie beverages. The auction isn't a consummate transaction, as PepsiCo will still retain distribution rights for Naked Juice in the United States, meaning you'll still be able to find your favorite juices in your normal spots.

At the fourth dimension of the sale, PepsiCo reported that its portfolio of juice businesses netted $3 billion in 2020 and that, overall, juice sales had slowed as consumers were interested in less-sugary drink options. Still, that didn't stop PepsiCo from buying Rockstar for $3.85 billion in 2020 (via Yahoo! News). That'southward despite the fact that with 270 calories and 63 grams of saccharide, a 16-ounce can of the energy drinkable has just equally many calories and grams of sugar equally a bottle of Naked Juice.

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Source: https://www.mashed.com/626940/the-untold-truth-of-naked-juice/

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