Odwalla
Odwalla juice caused a fatal outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in 1996 because of numerous flaws in its safety practices, for which the company was found criminally liable.
They sold their product from the back of a Volkswagen van to local restaurants,[7][8] employing slogans such as "soil to soul, people to planet and nourishing the body whole".
[10][11] Steltenpohl, Percy, and Bassett related this to their products, which they believe "help humans break free from the dull mass of over-processed foods so prevalent today".
Hambrecht & Quist Inc., a venture capital firm in San Francisco, was one of Odwalla's main investors at the time, investing several million dollars in the company.
[10][13] Odwalla went public in December 1993 (NASDAQ:ODWA);[7] the company had 35 delivery trucks, almost 200 employees, and made about $13 million a year.
[16] Continual growth and outside investments during these years allowed the company to expand and grow: Odwalla's revenue tripled from 1994 to 1995,[13] and in 1996 they made more than $59 million in sales, their highest ever.
[10][18] On October 7, 1996, Odwalla made a batch of apple juice using blemished fruit contaminated with E. coli resulting in one death and 66 sickened customers.
Because of the lack of pasteurization and numerous other flaws in its safety practices, the company was charged with 16 criminal counts of distributing adulterated juice.
Odwalla pleaded guilty, and was fined $1.5 million: at the time, the most significant penalty in a food poisoning case in the United States.
[22] Having recovered, the company worked to expand geographically into markets like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.,[23] and by the end of 1998 reported that revenue had surpassed pre-crisis levels.
[13] Growth continued over subsequent years,[24][25] in part through the $29 million acquisition of Fresh Samantha, a large juice company based in Saco, Maine, in 2000.
[26][27][28] This allowed Odwalla to expand into additional East Coast markets, but incurred high transportation costs as products had to be shipped across the United States from California.
To address this problem the company announced plans to build a second production facility in Palm Beach County, Florida.
[31][32] Under the terms of the merger, Odwalla's management stayed on as heads of the company, and it was "folded" into Coca-Cola's Minute Maid department.
[41] In July 2020, Coca-Cola announced the permanent discontinuation of all Odwalla products, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the brand not having shown growth in three consecutive years (a subset of the corporation's which comprise less than 2% of its total revenue).
[45][48] A sample underwent quality testing, and, if it passed, the batch was shipped in refrigerated trucks to various distribution centers in the United States.
