Odwalla
From Free net encyclopedia
Odwalla is a juice company founded in Santa Cruz, California in 1980 by Greg Steltenpohl, Gerry Percy, and Bonnie Bassett. Formerly a publicly traded company, Odwalla was acquired by the Coca-Cola Company in 2002.
The Odwalla brand includes juices, smoothies and similar health beverages. Odwalla helped popularize the flash pasteurization technique, which eliminates harmful bacteria without the associated taste and nutritional loss accompanying traditional pasteurization.
The company was shaken by a limited E. coli outbreak on the west coast in 1996 associated with its unpasteurized apple juice products. Due to its previous emphasis on not pasteurizing its fresh fruit juices, Odwalla began flash-pasteurization, which allowed it to stay true to Odwalla's primary emphasis on non-pasteurized products.
The juices were pulled from the shelves three hours after Odwalla was informed of the possible E. coli-apple juice link. This recall touched 4,600 retail locations in the U.S. and British Columbia, cost $6.5 million and took 48 hours.
The juices reappeared on the shelves on December 5, 1996 under the label "flash-pasteurized" and are safe for the elderly and children to consume.