Coca-Cola is closing its juice and fruit smoothie manufacturer Odwalla, citing transforming consumer tastes.

In a assertion to CNN Enterprise, the president of Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid organization unit, John Hackett, mentioned “every effort” was created to assistance ongoing output. “This decision was not created evenly,” he mentioned.

The closure will be done by the finish of the month. It will also entail 300 job cuts.

A spokesperson for the business mentioned the go was not instantly relevant to the COVID-19 crisis but that wellness-conscious people were being much less interested in smoothies than they made use of to be.

Coca-Cola “couldn’t make it operate, we couldn’t figure out the value-effectiveness of it,” the spokesperson mentioned. “It really is the consequence of people transforming what they want so swiftly. By releasing up individuals assets, we can reinvest individuals prices in what people want right now.”

Coca-Cola is also discontinuing its fleet of 230 refrigerated shipping and delivery trucks made use of by Odwalla as very well as its Fairlife and Only brand names, whose distribution will be redirected.

Coca-Cola obtained Odwalla in Oct 2001 for $181 million as section of a thrust into the non-carbonated high quality drink current market. Nonetheless, revenue of juice beverages have fallen amid to problems their sugar content material is linked to coronary heart disease and obesity.

In 2015, Coca-Cola launched new fifteen.2-ounce bottles created from obvious PET as the popularity of cold-pressed beverages was soaring. It also available kombucha mix and zero sugar strains to update the manufacturer.

U.S. people drank 5.2 gallons of fruit juice for every capita in 2017, the least expensive amount considering the fact that the USDA began recordkeeping in 1970.

“We’re targeted on maximizing technique performance by ruthlessly prioritizing to deliver on main [solutions] and key brand names,” main govt officer James Quincey mentioned in an earnings phone in April. “The much less complexity there is in [the source chain], the increased the probability for accomplishment.”

Coca-Cola, James Quincey, Odwalla