LOS ANGELES — Odwalla is back with a refreshed portfolio of fruit juices and smoothies to reestablish its position in the US beverage market.

The brand, which traces its roots back to the 1980s, was acquired by the Coca-Cola Co. in 2001 for $181 million, but the company discontinued the brand in 2020 due to “a rapidly shifting marketplace.” Investment firm Full Sail IP Partners then acquired Odwalla in September 2021 and has since partnered with Mexican fruit-based beverage manufacturer Grupo Jumex to bring the brand back to consumers in the United States.

“Why is it the perfect time to launch Odwalla?” asked Ariela Nerubay, chief marketing officer, USA, for Grupo Jumex in an interview with Food Business News. “Because nowadays all of our Gen Zs are looking for products that are simple, thoughtfully sourced, that are produced in places that are really concerned about the environment.”

Grupo Jumex plans to leverage Odwalla’s identity as a manufacturer of healthy and sustainably produced beverages to capture increased consumer interest in health-conscious formulations and ingredient labels, particularly among younger cohorts, Nerubay said.

“We have done extensive research about the fact that consumers today, more than ever, are extremely sensitive about the content, the ingredients and what the label is telling them about a product,” Nerubay said. “You can see it with a surge of interest on prebiotics, probiotics and all of these different functional drinks that are incredibly hot in the marketplace.”

Carlos Madrazo, country manager USA for Grupo Jumex, noted that Odwalla’s product line differentiates itself from other juice makers due to its formulations that naturally include functional benefits as opposed to “added functional benefits.” For instance, Madrazo pointed to Odwalla’s products that include ginger root, which may reduce inflammation and support immune system health, and nopal, which is associated with digestive health benefits.

“A lot of what you see today as innovation is added functionality … many juices, many beverages, they have added vitamins because they want to show added functionality,” Madrazo said. “The functionality that we see as being important for Odwalla is the functionality that you get from eating a mango, eating a banana, eating strawberries, which varies from vitamin C to the fiber in your digestive process.”

Presently, Grupo Jumex can produce 250 million cases of Odwalla products annually. The company possesses vertical integration capabilities in its Mexico-based manufacturing sites that enable it to specifically produce higher quality orange juices, Madrazo said. The company is able to squeeze the juices, bottle them and pasteurize them all from within the same facility and create a more consistent product.

Grupo Jumex additionally utilizes a pulse electric field method developed 15 years ago to pasteurize its orange juices, rather than the traditional high-temperature, short-time pasteurization process. The electric process shortens the amount of time the juice’s temperature is raised, helping to maintain its flavors.

“Instead of getting a container, putting the orange juice inside the container and then boiling it, what we do is we heat the orange juice itself on a container through one electric shock,” Madrazo said. “When you use the traditional pasteurization process, that is basically bringing the juice to 185 degrees for up to 40 seconds. This is 1/10th of a second, you basically kill the bacteria in an instant. And it protects the flavor, it protects the color, and, more importantly, it retains the nutrients.”