Crush (beverage)

"Orange Crush" redirects here. For other uses, see Orange Crush (disambiguation).
Crush
Type Soft drink
Manufacturer Pepsi Cola
Country of origin United States
Introduced 1916
Related products Fanta, Nehi, Orange Slice, Sunkist
A bottle of Crush strawberry soda
A 20 oz bottle of Pineapple Crush

Crush is a carbonated soft drink brand, originally marketed as an orange soda. Crush competed with Coca-Cola's Fanta. It was invented by California beverage and extract chemist Neil C. Ward. Most flavors of Crush are caffeine-free.

History

In 1911, Clayton J. Howel, president and founder of the Orange Crush Company, partnered with Neil C. Ward and incorporated the company. Ward made the recipe for Orange Crush. Howel was not new to the soft drink business, having earlier introduced Howel’s Orange Julep. Soft drinks of the time often carried the surname of the inventor along with the product name. Howel sold the rights to use his name in conjunction with his first brand; therefore, Ward was given the honors: Crush was first premiered as Ward's Orange Crush.[1] Originally, Orange Crush included orange pulp in the bottles, giving it a "fresh squeezed" illusion even though the pulp was added rather than remaining from squeezed oranges. Pulp has not been in the bottles for decades.

Logo for Ward's Orange Crush, c. 1921

Crush was purchased by Procter & Gamble in 1980 (with the exception of the Canadian rights, which were purchased in 1984). Procter & Gamble only manufactured "bottler's base," which was a concentrate consisting of flavor and color. 1 milliliter of bottler's base was combined with syrup and carbonated water to create a 12-ounce bottle of Crush. In 1989, Cadbury Schweppes acquired Crush USA from Procter & Gamble Co. Cadbury Schweppes spun off its United States beverage business as Dr Pepper Snapple Group in 2008.

The Crush brand and trademark are currently owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group of Plano, Texas. Crush is also popular in Canada, where it is distributed by subsidiary Canada Dry Motts. It is distributed by various Pepsi bottlers, the biggest being the Pepsi Bottling Group Canada.

Other countries where Crush is sold are Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Lebanon, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Syria, Uruguay and at one time Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Bolivia. In some countries of Latin America the Crush brand is distributed by The Coca-Cola Company, using the same colors and bottles as Fanta.

Several flavors (Orange, Diet Orange, Grape, Strawberry, Cherry) are available at most stores throughout North America; however, others are distributed only within small markets. Pineapple Crush and Birch Beer Crush, for instance, are relatively easy to obtain in both can and single serving bottle in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador and in Fort McMurray, Alberta. This will soon change, as the Pepsi Bottling Group has recently announced they would begin distributing Crush in a majority of their territory in the United States,[2] followed less than a month later by PepsiAmericas' announcement that they would follow suit in most of their territory.[3] The changeover in distribution became official in late January and early February 2009, with the Pepsi bottlers taking over the Crush rights in those areas and the bottling rights to Hawaiian Punch (which the Pepsi bottlers in those areas had handled prior to 2009) going to the bottlers of Dr Pepper and 7 Up.

Flavors

See also

Portal iconDrink portal

References

  1. "All about Crush" at Official Crush website
  2. Collier, Joe Guy (August 21, 2008), "Pepsi Bottling Group to distribute Crush in U.S.", The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, retrieved May 27, 2010
  3. "PepsiAmericas Signs Agreement With Dr Pepper Snapple Group To Further Boost Crush Brand Distribution" (Press release). PepsiAmericas. 18 September 2008. Archived from the original on February 3, 2009. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
  4. Kosher Beverage List at Chicago Rabbinical Council
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Official site
  6. 1 2 3 4 Star-K Online Recommended Soft Drink List, July 2010
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 All Crush sodas (and where to get them) at Facebook

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, February 08, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.