Naked Juices Are Now Natural Again

The Untold Truth Of Naked Juice

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You know Naked Juice. You've likely noticed it in the libation at the corner convenience store near some of the "healthier" drink options. You lot might've seen it in the produce section of your local grocery store (because that proximity to produce means something'southward healthy, right?). You may have even enjoyed your fair share of Naked Juice products — smoothies or otherwise — over the years. But do you really know what's in every bottle of Naked Juice? Or where the brand comes from? Or fifty-fifty why it's named "Naked Juice?" (Hint: it's not because the fruits and veggies are naked.)

Nosotros're breaking downwardly everything you demand to know before you sip on your next bottle of Naked Juice, from the company's humble beginnings to its founders' big break to its handful of big controversies, besides every bit all the good things the make is doing now. Here'due south the untold truth of Naked Juice.

Naked Juice was founded in 1983

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Allow'south start correct at the showtime, shall we? Naked Juice was founded in Santa Monica, California, in 1983 by Jimmy Rosenberg and David Bleeden (via The Acorn). The ii bandmates needed a job to support their music careers and started making juice afterwards Rosenberg's father 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 surface area, so they started making and selling their juices out of the back of a sub shop.

They'd wake up at three a.m. each forenoon to purchase their oranges from the local produce purveyors and then become to piece of work, hawking their wares not only out of the sub store, but as well along the Santa Monica embankment. Soon, Bleeden and Rosenberg realized they had a success on their hands. And as for the proper name, well, information technology was a cheeky nod to the ii young men'southward affinity for sunbathing in the nude (or so the Naked Juice lore goes).

The founders left the company early on

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

Rosenberg, meanwhile, decided to stay in the juice industry. In 1995, he founded Development Fresh, which specializes in cold-pressed juices and smoothies. (Goodnature referred to him as a "serial juice entrepreneur.") Evolution Fresh was more than of a long-booty project for Rosenberg, who stuck with the company until it was acquired by Starbucks in 2011 (he's still considered the make's "chief juice officer"). Though yous might not be able to detect Evolution Fresh products everywhere you tin find Naked Juice drinks, they are bachelor in nearly Starbucks and Target locations.

Naked Juice was endemic past PepsiCo

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Naked Juice'southward large intermission equally a brand came in 2006, when PepsiCo agreed to purchase the company from private disinterestedness business firm Due north Castle Partners (the sale was fabricated official the following January). North Castle had purchased Naked Juice in 2000 from Chiquita subsidiary California Mean solar day-Fresh Foods (via Beverage Online) and gave the juice a rebrand that it said better communicated "the production'south raw and witty character combined with its superior product quality and taste." After vi years of the firm's ownership, Naked Juice boasted sales of $150 million-plus, a nationwide reach, and 25 different products — but PepsiCo would be able to take the brand even further.

While nether N Castle's control, most of Naked Juice's marketing had been grassroots-based with the focus on health-food venues, PepsiCo had the ability to distribute Naked Juice products on a wider scale, especially since, around the same fourth dimension, the company was making a conscious endeavour to expand its healthy snacks and drinks portfolio; it also purchased Stacy'southward Pita Chips and IZZE Beverages within the same twelvemonth (via Reuters).

Naked Juice underwent a major rebrand

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Just prior to PepsiCo's conquering of Naked Juice, the brand was overhauled. In 2005, leadership wanted to market the juices' health benefits fifty-fifty further. The brand's biggest claim was what it called "the pound promise," a guarantee that a pound of produce was included in every single canteen of Naked Juice (via BevNet). Each bottle of juice received new packaging that showed the exact amount of produce, and what types of produce, were included in the production, as well as info on ingredients that Naked Juice called "boosts" — things similar extra vitamins or proteins that were added in.

"We designed our new packaging to make the buying conclusion easier for the consumer past list the exact amount of fruit and boosts in each canteen," said Kimber Ward, director of marketing for Naked Juice, at the time of the reboot. "Our customers appreciate the what-yous-see-is-what-you-get attitude of our make and nosotros wanted to extend that feeling into our packaging." Unfortunately, as we'll encounter in a chip, Naked Juice's marketing tactics may have made the buying conclusion a trivial as well easy for consumers.

There is a wide multifariousness of Naked Juice products

As office of the company'southward major rebrand, Naked Juice also began introducing some new, juice-next products. Naked Juice jumped on the super-foods trend, offering a 100% pure pomegranate juice touted for its antioxidant content. They also introduced a pomegranate blueberry juice, thus combining "ii power fruits" in one juice drink (via BevNet).

A few years later, Naked Juice would release a first for the industry — a smoothie that contained probiotics. Unveiled in 2008, Naked Juice Probiotic smoothies were described as 100% juice with added probiotics as well as prebiotics, to both add and assist skillful digestive bacteria (via Nutrient Processing). Today, the brand is anchored by four main lines: Machine (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 Poly peptide 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 information technology was 'all natural'

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PepsiCo was able to grow Naked Juice past leaps and bounds, sure — just the visitor's efforts to accomplish those goals also drew some unwanted attention. Some food professionals began wondering just how salubrious Naked Juice really was and whether the brand's claims were really truthful. For i particular lawsuit (yes, in that location were others), there was a filing made against Naked Juice stating the make'south "all natural" claims were wrong, as some of the vitamins added to the drinks are technically constructed and man-made, meaning the juices aren't really 100% natural (via United states of america Today). As a issue of the lawsuit (which was filed in 2013), Naked Juice removed the phrase "all natural" from its packaging and paid $9 one thousand thousand every bit part of the settlement.

Simply was Naked Juice's employ of the term "natural" really all that bad? Information technology'south a bit of a gray area, according to the Nutrient and Drug Administration, which told USA Today at the time that it doesn't accept a clear definition for what is or isn't a natural production.

Naked Juice has faced multiple lawsuits

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Naked Juice's legal woes would continue in 2016. This time around, according to Business organisation Insider, the Heart for Scientific discipline in the Public Interest filed a lawsuit claiming that Naked Juice's marketing tactics across the lath — non just when using words or phrases like "all natural" — portrayed the drinks as healthier than they actually were. The Heart noted that the company'due south Kale Blazer juice, for example, is packaged so that it appears to be filled with leafy greens and other healthful goodness, when, in reality, the principal ingredients are orange and apple juices, which the Heart described equally "cheap" and "nutrient-poor."

All the same, the Center didn't necessarily have an issue with the juices beingness not-that-healthy overall; instead, it merely wanted Naked Juice to be more than transparent near what information technology's 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 Drink Daily, PepsiCo agreed to revise packaging to more clearly and accurately show and describe a product's ingredients, reduce the font size on its "no carbohydrate added" phrasing on packaging, add together a disclaimer that the drinks are non considered depression-calorie, and more than prominently display caloric content.

Several Naked Juice products contain more saccharide than soda

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One complaint from the Eye for Science in the Public Interest's lawsuit was that Naked Juice'south marketing and packaging gives the idea that a Naked Juice product is a healthier consumer pick than, say, a soda, when that'due south not the case at all (via Business Insider). The Heart pointed out a 15.2-ounce bottle of the brand's Pomegranate Blueberry juice (billed as a as a no-sugar-added production) contains 61 grams of saccharide, which is about l% more carbohydrate than what y'all'll find in a 12-ounce can of Pepsi.

Of grade, the 2016 lawsuit didn't result in Naked Juice actually irresolute any of its ingredients, and then y'all'll still find a big amount of sugar in much of the brand's products. Today, Naked's Blueish Car Boosted Smoothie, for example, contains 320 calories and 55 grams of sugar. The make'southward Protein Greens juice contains 400 calories and 50 grams of sugar. Only Naked'due south Chocolate Protein smoothie contains more calories, at 410 calories per canteen and 47 grams of sugar. Comparatively, a 12-ounce tin 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 diet claims are ane thing, but in 2017 a rumor was going around on Facebook stating that Naked Juice products contain formaldehyde, which, aye, is the same stuff morticians employ to preserve dead bodies.

According to Snopes, the accusation was traced back to a Facebook user who said, "Friends don't allow friends drinkable formaldehyde." The user went on to item PepsiCo's 2013 lawsuit that resulted in removing the "natural" label from Naked Juice products. She noted, "They actually were institute to have a bunch of nasty chemicals in them including formaldehyde (keeps your expressionless trunk preserved — no thanks), Fibersol-2 ('a soluble corn cobweb that acts as a low-calorie bulking agent'), fructooligosaccharides (an alternative sweetener), other artificial 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 salt course of Vitamin B5. While the product'south chemical synthesis (the process by which products are derived via chemic reactions) does require formaldehyde, it is in no way related to the final production. 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 attempt for the terminal decade to reduce its carbon footprint.

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

Over the last few years, Naked Juice has besides switched from truck shipping to train shipping, a move the company says reduced its carbon footprint past more than 5,000 tons, or about the same amount of carbon that would require iii,119 football game fields of wood to eradicate information technology from the temper.

Naked Juice uses 100% rPET bottles

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

So what exactly does this mean? The reNEWabottles are made from 100% postal service-consumer recycled plastic, which substantially removes more vii meg pounds of new plastics from grocery store shelves each year, while also saving upwardly to 12,000 cubic meters of landfill space. The decision to switch to reNEWabottles also reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 35%, a reduction equal to 500,000 gallons of gas per year. Keeping the Naked Juice bottle bike going is every bit uncomplicated as consumers recycling each empty Naked Juice bottle rather than tossing them into the trash.

Naked Juice and PepsiCo are splitting upwardly

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Naked Juice volition shortly no longer exist nether the PepsiCo umbrella. As of August 2021, the mega-conglomerate agreed to sell Naked Juice and its other juice brands (including Tropicana) for $three.3 billion to private equity firm PAI Partners (via The Street). In an ironic plough of events, while PepsiCo originally purchased Naked Juice as an attempt to aggrandize its line of healthy choice products, this fourth dimension, the visitor says it so ld Naked Juice and its other juice brands to focus instead on good for you snacks and zip-calorie beverages. The sale isn't a complete transaction, every bit PepsiCo will still retain distribution rights for Naked Juice in the U.s., pregnant you'll still exist able to detect your favorite juices in your normal spots.

At the time 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 finish PepsiCo from buying Rockstar for $3.85 billion in 2020 (via Yahoo! News). That's despite the fact that with 270 calories and 63 grams of sugar, a xvi-ounce can of the energy drink has just as many calories and grams of sugar every bit a bottle of Naked Juice.

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