Capri-Sun
Capri-Sun is a brand of juice concentrate–based drinks manufactured by the German company Wild and regional licensees. Rudolf Wild invented the drink in 1969 and introduced it in West Germany as Capri-Sonne. It has come to be sold in over 100 countries, with licensees including Kraft Foods in the United States and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners in parts of Europe. It is one of the most popular juice brands in the world; as of 2023, roughly 6 billion pouches are sold per year globally.
Since its launch, Capri-Sun has been packaged in laminated foil vacuum Doy-N-Pack pouches, with which the brand has become strongly associated. In the United States, these pouches predated the advent of Tetra Brik, in an era when fruit juice was usually sold in large containers. The pouch design has stayed largely the same, but changes in some markets have included transparent bottoms and paper straws, while other container types have been introduced for some products. Capri-Sun is available in varying ranges of flavors in different countries, targeting different national flavor profiles. Globally, its best-known flavor is Orange.
Capri-Sun's main products are high in sugar content, although lower than many competitors. Characterizations of the juice drinks as "all-natural" have led to conflict in several countries between consumer advocates who highlight the high sugar content and low juice percentage and Capri-Sun and its licensees, who have generally maintained that the term correctly describes the ingredients. Disputes over sugar content and "all-natural" status have led to two lawsuits in the United States and the removal of the brand's main line from Tesco shelves in the United Kingdom.
In France, Capri-Sun has figured prominently in rap songs and has been noted as a drink of choice in poor areas. Capri-Sun is often marketed to children, which has earned it a negative award from the consumer advocacy group Foodwatch. In the United States, Kraft and its former parent company, the tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris Cos., have successfully marketed Capri Sun using strategies developed for selling cigarettes to children. American parents often misidentify Capri Sun as healthy, and it is one of the most favorably rated brands among Generation Z Americans.
Brand history
Origins and global overview
founded Rudolf Wild & Co. in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1931. After World War II, Rudolf Wild created Libella, which, according to Rudolf's son Hans-Peter Wild, was Germany's first branded beverage with a fruit-juice base. Libella was successful, and Wild pursued several other ventures, including Capri-Sonne, which was developed in the 1960s. Restrictions on color additives at the time in West Germany led to less visually appealing soft drinks, incentivizing opaque packaging. Rudolf Wild & Co. engaged with Thimonnier, a French company that primarily manufactured sewing machines, for rights to use their patented pouch design and pouch-making machines. According to Hans-Peter, Rudolf Wild & Co., they did not obtain exclusive rights to Thimonnier's patents but bought all of their machines to make the pouches. After initial issues with spoilage and stains were resolved, the product debuted in West Germany in 1969. The name references the Italian island of Capri, a fashionable yet affordable vacation destination for Germans of the 1960s. Capri inspired many other product names around the same time and place, such as the Ford Capri, Capri pants, and Langnese Capri ice cream; it was branding that appealed to, and represented, bourgeois indulgence.At the initiative of Hans-Peter Wild, champion boxer Muhammad Ali began promoting the brand in 1978. SiSi-Werke, the Wild subsidiary responsible for Capri-Sonne, said that the deal included one product crate a week for four years. The endorsement—in which Ali said Capri-Sonne was, like him, "the greatest of all time"—led to a significant increase in sales. By 1982, Capri-Sun was sold in 23 countries, in 19 of which it was the most popular fruit juice. Availability rose to 52 countries by 1991.
Capri Sun GmbH is organized and headquartered in Germany and is a subsidiary of Swiss companies Capri Sun AG and Capri Sun Group Holding AG and of German company Wild. When Rudolf Wild & Co. went public in 2009, Hans-Peter Wild excluded Capri Sun AG from the offering to avoid losing control of it. Wild licenses the brand to different companies, which as of 2009 bottle Capri-Sun in 18 countries; Wild subsidiary INDAG supplies the various bottling plants. Another subsidiary, Pouch Partners, which has served as Capri-Sun's pouch supplier, was sold to CCL Industries in 2023 and rebranded as CCL Specialty Pouches.
In 2009 Capri-Sun's global sales of 1.106 billion liters of absolute volume ranked third in the world among fruit juice brands, after Tropicana and Minute Maid. At that time, per capita consumption in the United States and Germany was around 6 Capri-Sun pouches per year, while the French island of Réunion—a major Capri-Sun exporter where the juice sells for the same price as water—had the highest per capita consumption at 9.6., Capri-Sun sells an estimated 6 billion pouches per year globally., Forbes reports sales in more than 100 countries, netting roughly $500 million per year.
Europe
After initial poor sales under RHM Foods, Coca-Cola Schweppes Beverages took over production of Capri-Sun in the United Kingdom in 1994. Coca-Cola Enterprises, which bought Coca-Cola Schweppes in 1997, began selling the drink in France in 2007. As the number of children in Germany aged 6 to 12 decreased, SiSi-Werke developed a resealable spouted pouch aimed toward older demographics, which debuted in Germany and the United Kingdom by 2009. By 2014, CCE was selling Capri-Sun in France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom; its successors Coca-Cola European Partners and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners continued selling the brand. In Ukraine, as of 2015 Capri-Sun is licensed to. In France, 213 million pouches were sold in 2016, a 24% increase from the previous year. Sales increased another 20% to 250 million the next year.In February 2017 SiSi-Werke announced that it would rename Capri-Sonne to Capri-Sun in Germany, the last country to have retained the original name. The brand faced some criticism for the change, some of it lighthearted in tone; they did not rule out reintroducing the name later. Three months later, Capri Sun Group's CEO reported no negative impact on sales. Starting in 2018, Capri Sun Group began assuming direct control of more of its distribution, starting with Switzerland, Austria, the Middle East, China, and Poland. Citing a desire to be more "agile and responsive", in 2023 it announced an end to its agreement with CCEP, with a gradual transition to begin in March 2024. It hired an additional 70 employees for the CCEP transition.
North America
1979–1991: Shasta Beverages
In 1979 Shasta Beverages began to license the drink from Wild in the United States under the name Capri Sun. After two promising test runs in Buffalo, New York, and Atlanta, Georgia, Shasta began a rolling expansion, starting with the Midwestern and Southeastern United States in 1980 and 1981.When Shasta introduced the product in the United States, its single-serving packaging was unusual in contrast with the cans that dominated the fruit juice market. Despite initial issues on the rollout, the packaging was light, durable, blunt, long-lasting, freezable, and insular. The patented design, trademarked under the name Doy-N-Pack and exclusively licensed by Shasta from Wild, soon faced a competitor in aseptic "brick packaging" like Tetra Brik. Both proved popular in stores, and Doy-N-Pack would usher in the use of pouches for single-serving food and beverage containers in the United States.
Shasta intended the product for children around 7 to 12; its marketing director for new products told a journalist, "Adults have a mental block about putting the straw in—they try to be careful, and it just doesn't work." Instead of general advertising, Shasta's marketing placed image spots in kids' magazines such as DuckTales and Sports Illustrated for Kids, building brand loyalty based on promotional offers, word of mouth, and child-oriented package design. Early marketing emphasized the product as all-natural, a designation that was met with some criticism. By 1982, it had a 10% market share where it was available and was aiming for a 15–20% share against competitors Hi-C and Hawaiian Punch, which were about half its price. Most of Capri Sun's early market share gains came at the expense of small brands.
In 1983 the Capri Sun brand brought Shasta $28 million in sales. In 1985, Sara Lee sold Shasta to National Beverage. Capri Sun Inc., a dedicated subsidiary, was established to market Capri Sun in the 1980s, headquartered in San Mateo, California, with factories in nearby Fresno and in Granite City, Illinois.
1991–present: Kraft Foods
In December 1991 Kraft General Foods announced a buyout of Capri Sun Inc. for $155 million, making it part of General Foods USA. The acquisition was expected to strengthen the Kraft's share in the juices and drinks market and increase Capri Sun's marketing power. The acquisition covered marketing rights in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the former two of which Kraft retains rights in as of 2022.Kraft's parent company, Philip Morris Cos., had been barred from marketing cigarettes to children, but had accrued significant experience in selling to young people before the ban was implemented. To make use of this expertise, they acquired sugary drink brands, including Capri Sun, Kool-Aid, and Tang. The campaign they created emphasized flashy colors and beach scenes, evoking a bright and fun-seeming "California cool"; later, they would switch to a sporty theme. In 1994, Philip Morris added Capri Sun to Lunchables, prepackaged lunch sets for schoolchildren. By 2006, marketing techniques had gone online as well, including a website where children under the age of 13 could submit photos for a chance to win a vacation for their families or send Capri Sun–themed greeting cards. These techniques were extremely successful: by 1996, Capri Sun was selling 26% more each year than the last, and sales had risen to over $230 million from around $100 million in 1991. This rise was also attributed to improvements in manufacturing efficiency. In 2008, Capri Sun went from projecting a 5% drop in sales to a 17% increase because of a "Respect the Pouch" campaign aimed at 6–12-year-olds. A 2019 review in The BMJ, which criticized the health effects of marketing sugary drinks to children, found that the marketing techniques introduced by Philip Morris were still in use, even after Kraft became independent of it in 2007.
In the 2020s Capri Sun has been noted for its marketing to parents. In 2020, Kraft used the Granite City plant to manufacture pouches of filtered water labeled "we're sorry it's not juice", donating 5 million pouches to schools in the Granite City area and Chicagoland. The accompanying ad campaign, according to Ad Age, was targeted towards parents in the area who were concerned about COVID-19 pandemic safety restrictions shutting down drinking fountains. In 2022, the company released an advertisement more directly targeted at parents in light of new regulations, starring a character named "Juicio". The character, modeled after the male leads of romance novels, appears onscreen in-character for long enough to try and disinterest children viewers and then changes tack to pitch Capri Sun to the adults still watching. This was not their first foray into marketing to parents: under Philip Morris Cos., Capri Sun slightly changed the formula to include juice concentrate, which allowed them to include "Natural fruit drink. No artificial flavors." on the packaging.