Minute Maid in history

It was started during World War II, where National Research Corporation of Boston, Massachusetts, developed high vacuum evaporation processes for dehydrating penicillin, blood plasma and streptomycin for use in United States war effort. The army wanted to extend and apply this method for food industry.

Minute Maid began in 1945 as Florida Foods Corporation. National Research Corporation organized Florida Foods Corporation to build a production plant in Plymouth Florida. A Boston company developed a method of turning orange juice powder with the idea of selling it to the army for use during World War II. The War ended before the powder could be produced, and the company temporarily abandoned its plans for a powder.

Instead, it pioneered frozen concentrate and produced its first product in 1946, and diverted its focus to consumer market. The company was so small, it could not advertise, and the firm’s president went door to door handing out samples. It adopted the Minute Maid name in 1949. The name of Minute Maid was an idea of Boston advertising agency. They explored the possibility of marketing an “intermediate step” in the production process – frozen orange juice concentrate. And it was success.

A few years later Florida Foods Corporations was renamed as The Minute Maid Company.

In 1960, The Coca-Cola Company acquired Minute Maid through a stock swap. The Coca-Cola Company then introduced ready to drinks chilled juice in 1973 and in 1996 ‘Minute Maid Premium, 100% Pure Squeezed Juice.

Minute Maid orange juice debuted in vertically oriented cans covered with oranges. But by 1964, with most of the competition featuring similar citrus designs, the company decided to go something different a label that was predominantly black.

The gamble work so well that by the mid 1990s Minute Maid was compelled to images of oranges in order to stand out from all the food products that had copied their black packaging.

In November 2015, Coca-Cola revealed that they will introduce a new product called Minute Maid Sparkling in March 2016.
Minute Maid in history