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 (a name retired in favor of the English name in 2017). It has come to be sold in over 100 countries, with licensees including Kraft Foods in the United States (as Capri Sun) and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners in parts of Europe. It is one of the most popular juice brands in the world; , 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. ( Altria), have successfully marketed Capri Sun using strategies developed for selling cigarettes to children.. See also summaries ("tobacco executives, barred from targeting children for cigarette sales, focused their marketing prowess on young people to sell sugary beverages in ways that had not been done before") and ([T]he Kool-Aid kid program was modeled after a tobacco marketing strategy designed to build allegiance with smokers'[, said Nguyen] ... The tobacco company also purchased Capri Sun and Tang and used similar child-centric marketing strategies to push sales"). 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
Rudolf Wild founded Rudolf Wild & Co. (better known as Wild) 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,. "With Libella's success, Wild moved on to bigger enterprises: ... [H]e created ". Regarding name, see . 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 (renamed from SiSi-Werke in 2018) 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., quoting Wild. "Putting Wild on the stock exchange with Capri-Sonne as part of it makes no sense. Then, it could happen that Capri-Sonne would be bought out of the stock exchange package. I don't want that." Wild licenses the brand to different companies, which 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 (243 million imp gal; 292 million U.S. gal) ranked third in the world among fruit juice brands, after Tropicana and Minute Maid.. Tropicana sold 1.95 billion gallons to Minute Maid's 1.45 billion. 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 (CCE), 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 (CCEP) continued selling the brand. In Ukraine, 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 (covering Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), 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 (then a part of Consolidated Foods) 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,; ; (regarding Rochester, near Buffalo). Additionally, and mention trials in St. Louis, Missouri, and in several cities in Ohio, respectively. 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.. . single serve bottom gusseted standup pouch with its attached overwrapped straw would re-invent the way we and a generation of children thought about and accepted pouch packaged products in our everyday lives ... As mentioned, this single product market success, more than any other, pushed the market forward".
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."As quoted in , regarding children ages 8 to 12. See also , quoting the same person: "We think our largest market segment is children between 7 and 11 years old." 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.Variously: , quoting a review panelist. "I also resent them using the word 'natural' on the label. It uses 12% fruit juice, the same as many Hi-C-like drinks". . "Capri Sun's marketing campaign emphasizes a 'natural fruit drink' with 'no preservatives' and 'nothing artificial'. But it's only 10% fruit juice, just like Hi-C and Hawaiian Punch." . "Capri Sun, a 'natural fruit drink' with 'no artificial ingredients' ... also lists 'grape skin extract' as one of the ingredients in its raspberry apple beverage." 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 (the former Consolidated Foods) 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 $155 million ($ million in ), 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.; ; ; ; . (, and incorrectly characterize the deal as a mere transfer of rights.) The acquisition covered marketing rights in the United States (extending to Puerto Rico), Canada, and Mexico, the former two of which Kraft retains rights in .