Odwalla

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Odwalla (pronounced Oh-dwa-la) is a juice company founded in Santa Cruz, California in 1980 by Greg Steltenpohl, Gerry Percy, and Bonnie Bassett. It is now headquartered in Half Moon Bay, CA and its production facility is located in Dinuba, CA. Formerly a publicly traded company, Odwalla was acquired by the Coca-Cola Company in 2002 for $181 million.^[1]

The Odwalla brand includes juices, smoothies and similar health beverages, as well as protein bars. Odwalla helped popularize the flash pasteurization technique, which eliminates harmful bacteria without the associated taste and nutritional loss accompanying traditional pasteurization.

The name Odwalla was taken from that of a character in the song Illistrum by Malachi Favors as performed by the Art Ensemble of Chicago.^[2]

In their first years of operation, Odwalla was contracted to supply the original Mac development team with fruit juice^[3].

[edit] E. coli outbreak

In 1996 Odwalla was shaken by a limited outbreak of the E. coli O157:H7 bacterium on the West Coast causing one death of a toddler and 66 illnesses which resulted in the recall of 1,000 units of its unpasteurized apple juice and beverages containing apple juice.^[4] Thirteen Odwalla apple juice products were pulled from the shelves on October 31 as part of a voluntary recall in cooperation with the FDA.^[5] This recall touched 4,600 retail locations in the U.S. and British Columbia, cost $6.5 million and took 48 hours. Following the event, Odwalla introduced flash pasteurization to its manufacturing process to address safety concerns. Due to the lack of prior pasteurization and numerous food safety violations, Odwalla was found responsible and criminally negligent for the death.^[6] The juices reappeared on the shelves on December 5, 1996 under the label "flash-pasteurized" and are reportedly safe for the elderly and children to consume. It won an award for best independently owned business in California in 1999.

[edit] References

1. ^ "Coke buys Odwalla", CNNmoney, October 30, 2001.
2. ^ Odwalla: Who We Are, Odwalla Inc., retrieved May 25, 2006
3. ^ Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories: Spoiled?
4. ^ 1999 FDA Budget report, Food and Drug Administration, 1999
5. ^ E. Coli 0157:H7 outbreak associated with Odwalla brand apple juice products, Food and Drug Administration, October 31, 1996
6. ^ [1], Food and Drug Administration 1999.

[edit] External links

• Official website of Odwalla Inc.
• The Odwalla affair
• CSR crisis management case studies - Odwalla
• E. coli poisoning leads to Odwalla juice recall on CNN