The fruit juices of the Punica brand are cult, especially among children of the 90s.
But now the label will disappear from the shelves forever.
Neu-Isenburg - The fruit juice brand Punica disappears from the supermarket shelves.
The US beverage company Pepsico has now announced that the brand will be completely withdrawn from the market at its Neu-Isenburg site near Frankfurt.
Several media had previously reported on the end of the juices, which were very present in advertising in the 1980s and 1990s.
Pepsico sold the majority of its juice division, including Punica, to French financial investor PAI Partners last year.
The new joint venture, Tropical Brands Group, has reviewed strategic priorities and made the difficult decision to withdraw Punica from the market, Pepsico said on the sale.
Pepsico had previously sold the drink in Germany.
According to media reports, production had already been stopped in September 2022.
At the moment only remaining stocks of the brand are being sold.
Punica is discontinued: Slogans such as "more fruit, less thirst" gave the brand cult status
The Punica brand became particularly well-known through TV advertising.
Here is an example of the low calorie fruit juice with no added sugar from 1982 on Youtube.
The advertising clips for the Punica oasis – often with a look into the children's room or living room – ran every half hour between numerous anime series in the afternoon.
The first Punica bottle made it onto the market back in 1977.
The then Dittmeyer GmbH was taken over in 1984 by brand manufacturers Procter & Gamble (Lenor, Pampers, Ariel, Old Spice, Meister Proper).
This was followed by sales to the American investor JW Childs in 2005 and a year later to Pepsico.
There, Punica was incorporated into the Tropicana Brands Group juice division.
However, Punica has been missing from the shelves of supermarkets and discounters for a long time.
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The soft drinks of the Punica brand have been available in the food trade since 1977.
Now let them go forever.
© Manfred Segerer/imago
In a dispute with the manufacturer, for example, the supermarket chain Edeka and the discounter Netto had already thrown the Punica brand off the shelves in 2019.
Since then, consumers have only been able to buy “leftover stock”.
The gaps were filled with retailers' own brands.
Fruit and orange juices are often better than their reputation.
Even smoothies cannot always convince experts.
That's what Pepsico is planning for consumers now
In 2021, according to
the Lebensmittel-Zeitung
(LZ), fruit-based beverages with the Punica label in German retail still had sales of around EUR 33 million at retail prices.
According to the data, the revenues were significantly higher the year before, according to the LZ.
According to
Wirtschaftswoche
(Wiwo), Pepsi plans to use the proceeds from the sale (about $3.3 billion) to
launch
more healthy snacks and low-calorie drinks .
Pepsico will retain a 39 percent stake in the joint venture and hold the sole distribution rights in the USA,
Wiwo reports
further.
PAI has made several deals in the food and beverage industry in recent years, including taking over Häagen-Dazs in the USA from Nestlé.
List of rubrics: © Manfred Segerer/imago
