Origin
Odwalla was founded in Santa Cruz, California, in 1980 by Greg Steltenpohl, Gerry Percy, and Bonnie Bassett.[6][7] Odwalla's production facility is in Dinuba, California. The trio took the idea of selling fruit juices from a business guidebook, and they began by squeezing orange juice with a secondhand juicer in a shed in Steltenpohl's backyard. They sold their product from the back of a Volkswagen van to local restaurants,[7][8] employing slogans such as "soil to soul, people to planet and nourishing the body whole".[9]
The name for their start-up, "Odwalla", was taken from that of a character who guided "the people of the sun" out of the "gray haze" in the song-poem "Illistrum", a favorite of the founders, which was composed by Roscoe Mitchell and performed by the Art Ensemble of Chicago jazz group, of which Mitchell was a member.[10][11] Steltenpohl, Percy, and Bassett related this to their products, which they believe "help humans break free from the dull mass of over-processed foods so prevalent today".[12]
Incorporation to 1996
Odwalla was incorporated in September 1985 after five years of growth[6] and expanded to sell products in San Francisco in 1988. Hambrecht & Quist Inc., a venture capital firm in San Francisco, was one of Odwalla's main investors at the time, investing several million dollars in the company.[10] By 1992, the company employed 80 people at its company headquarters in Davenport, California, and sold around 20 different flavors of juice for between $1.50 and $2.00 a pint.[10][13] Odwalla went public in December 1993 (NASDAQ:ODWA);[7] the company had 35 delivery trucks, almost 200 employees, and made about $13 million a year.[14]
1997 - 2001
On October 7, 1996, Odwalla made a batch of apple juice using blemished fruit contaminated with E. coli resulting in one death and 66 sickened customers.[18] The outbreak occurred because Odwalla sold unpasteurized fruit juices, though pasteurization had long been standard in the juice industry, claiming that pasteurization alters the flavor and destroys nutrients. Because of the lack of pasteurization and numerous other flaws in its safety practices, the company was charged with 16 criminal counts of distributing adulterated juice. Odwalla pleaded guilty, and was fined $1.5 million: at the time, the most significant penalty in a food poisoning case in the United States.
Despite a net loss for most of 1997, Odwalla worked to rehabilitate its brand name. In addition to advertising its new safety procedures, Odwalla released its line of food bars (its first solid food product line) and entered the $900 million fruit bar market.[7][20] Another new product was the Future Shake, a "liquid lunch" aimed at younger consumers.[21] Because of these efforts, Odwalla was again profitable by the end of 1997, reporting a profit of $140,000 for the third quarter.
2001 - 2020
Odwalla was purchased by The Coca-Cola Company in 2001 for $15.25 a share, a deal which totalled $181 million and was unanimously approved by the Odwalla board of directors.[31][32] Under the terms of the merger, Odwalla's management stayed on as heads of the company, and it was "folded" into Coca-Cola's Minute Maid department.[33] The acquisition was one of several similar mergers which were aimed at expanding Coca-Cola's product line to include non-carbonated drinks.[34][35] Odwalla benefited by obtaining up to a 124.3 percent premium on shares of the company, as well as from the stability and strength that ownership by The Coca-Cola Company offered.[36]
2020 - today
In July 2020, Coca-Cola announced the permanent discontinuation of all Odwalla products, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the brand not having shown growth in three consecutive years (a subset of the corporation's which comprise less than 2% of its total revenue).[42][43] Coca-Cola sold the brand to Full Sail IP Partners in 2021.[44] Its headquarters was relocated to its production facility in Dinuba, California, some time in the early 2020s.
In January 2025, Mexican beverage company Jumex announced a partnership with Full Sail IP Partners in which Jumex would handle manufacturing. The brand was relaunched that year.[3] Odwalla is now distributed by Vilore Foods Company, Inc. of San Antonio, Texas, with juices manufactured in Mexico.
