Starbucks announced that it will sell fruit juice brands and focus on coffee beverage business

When it comes to Starbucks, the deepest impression of the brand is latte, cappuccino and other milk coffee. However, few people may have noticed that Starbucks also has a juice brand, Evolution Fresh. Now Starbucks has announced the sale of the juice brand and is focusing on the growth of its coffee business.

On the same day, Starbucks announced a final agreement with Bolthouse Farms to acquire Starbucks' juice brand (Evolution Fresh) and its business, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (The Wall Street Journal) on May 24. Bolthouse said it would retain nearly 300 employees of the juice brand and said it expected to complete it later this year, but the terms of the deal had not been disclosed. Starbucks said the financial impact of the deal was not expected to be significant.

It is reported that the Bolthouse brand currently accounts for 1/4 of sales in the US refrigerated beverage industry. As of last month, Evolution Fresh brands sold by some retailers, with the exception of Whole Foods Market and Starbucks, accounted for only about 2 per cent of the US frozen beverage market, according to IRI.

Starbucks bought Evolution Fresh for $30 million in 2011, when Howard Schultz took the helm for the second time. At the time, Mr. Schultz said the deal would give Starbucks a place in the $1.6 billion market for premium fruit juices and health care products.

Starbucks subsequently opened several Evolution Fresh-branded juice bars, but after Kevin Kevin Johnson became chief executive of Starbucks in 2017, the Evolution Fresh juice business was left out in the cold, selling bottled Evolution Fresh organic cold-pressed juices in Starbucks stores in the United States.

When Kevin Kevin Johnson stepped down as chief executive in 2022, Howard Schultz returned to Starbucks and took over Johnson's baton.

Since then, Schultz has pushed Starbucks to focus on improving its US coffee business: in April, it cancelled its multibillion-dollar share buyback program and invested more money in its US stores and its employees. On May 23, Starbucks announced that it would permanently withdraw from the Russian market, close more than 130 stores and pay about six months' wages to its employees in Russia.

The unionization activities of Starbucks stores in the United States are becoming more and more active, and more and more stores and partners want to get better benefits. Evolution Fresh, as a high-end juice brand in Starbucks, which does not have much to do with coffee, was sold by Starbucks to Bolthouse, which specializes in fruit juice drinks in the United States. Let Starbucks better build new bridges with restless employees and inject new vitality into its stores.

Bolthouse, which took over Evolution Fresh, was excited about the acquisition, and a spokesman for Bolthouse said he appreciated the brand and saw its untapped potential in the high-end beverage category, according to Business News.

Photo Source: Internet

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