It’s the end of an era – one that starts back way before I was even a gleam in my father’s eye! Minute Maid is discontinuing its hallmark frozen juice concentrates. All the more tragic a cultural loss, con-sidering they invented the product…
It all started back in 1945, when the US government asked Minute Maid’s pre-cursor company, the Florida Foods Cor-poration, to supply 500,000 lb / 227,000 kg of orange juice powder for the Army.
Marching orders…
Alas… The war ended before Florida Foods could deliver the product. And it was left with a warehouse full of ‘inst-ant’ orange juice. After a year of trial and error, they’d invented frozen con-centrated orange juice. It was an ‘inst-ant’ (pun intended) hit, and soon was being shipped to all corners of the continental US.
In 1948, the company started advert-ising on radio, with super-star Bing Crosby as its spokes-singer. Neither Crosby nor the company ever looked back. Within a year, the company had changed its name to match its flagship product: Minute Maid.
In the 1960s, MM was acquired by Dun-can Foods, a Houston-based coffee business, which subsequently merged with the Cocoa Cola Co.
In the 1970’s, freshly minted Miss America Anita Bryant took over as the brand’s spokes-singer, and the jingle/slogan ‘From the Florida Sunshine Tree’ became an American cultural icon.
Still leveraging it…
The brand is still leveraging the ‘Sunshine Tree’ concept in its advertising, as the photo-illustration, left, attests.
But it’s expanded its range of products to include over 100 different flavours and varieties, including juices, lemonades, and fruit punches, sold in more than 100 countries around the world.
But why ditch concentrates?
The reason is simple. Sales have been lagging. Why? Market experts say pre-mixed juices (from concentrate) and other fruit drinks and punches are more convenient for the growing, fast-paced younger market. As we know from previous product studies, convenience is one of their primary concerns.
It’s not just Minute Maid, either. Several other juice brands – both ‘name’ and generic, have already canned their frozen concentrates businesses.
“Out of all the cups of juice that Canadians are consuming, only about seven percent is from frozen concentrate,” Emma Balment, the Toronto-based Director of Market Strategy and Understanding at market research firm Ipsos, told CBC News. In fact, frozen concentrate is now the smallest and least-profitable juice subcategory.
My take
Let’s not forget that many younger folks – more aware than their elders of the potential nutritional downsides of processed foods – are ditching prepared beverages altogether. They’re drinking more bottled and tap water…
Munther Zeid, the owner of grocery a Food Fare store in Winnipeg, said he’s been watching the frozen juice sector for some time. And he confides that he came to the conclusion long ago that the product category would be discontinued.
“It’s been a dying category for a few years now,” he said. “I don’t think anybody’s even going to notice it’s gone.”
~ Maggie J.