Grapette is now produced by Grapette International, and is marketed in the United States by Wal-Mart as part of its Sam's Choice line of soft drinks. This page was last edited on 29 September 2020, at 03:12.

Rheingold changed the name of the company from Grapette to Flavette, and relocated the company headquarters to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Spunky little Grapette -- the grape-flavored soda that people could enjoy "thirsty or not" -- epitomized the American soft drink industry of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. When World War II began, Fooks dropped many of his other brands, such as Botl-O and Sunburst, in order to focus on Grapette. Our dedicated team of scientists will develop a formulation that gets your product to the marketplace. Bottlers also liked Grapette’s bottle because it used less glass to produce and therefore was less expensive to purchase. The flavor compounds produced by Grapette International are used in everything from sports drinks to snow cone mixes to margarita mixes.

Most soft drinks at the time were sold in twelve-ounce bottles.

Grapette was sold in a six-ounce clear glass bottle, which served to show off the beverage's purple color. In 1989, Grapette International began producing a line of drinks for Walmart under the Ozark Farms brand. He went back to Paducah to attend a business college and then returned to Camden to enter the lumber business with his father. Spunky little Grapette -- the grape-flavored soda that people could enjoy " thirsty or not " - epitomized the American soft drink industry of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Grapette Is Your One Stop Premium Flavor Source. Pepsico began a hostile takeover of Rheingold in 1975, and the Federal Trade Commission ruled that Pepsico had to divest several soft drink lines. The drink was popular in large part because of its sixteen-ounce bottle. Rice told Glass, "This is a tribute to you and Sam for having the vision on this product." There’s a small sign out front, but most of those who drive by likely don’t know that it’s now the home of one of the country’s iconic soft drink brands, Grapette. This was due to Grapette's flavor, as well as Grapette's unique packaging. on Friday, January 10th, 2014 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Business, Memories. Isotonic sports drinks and energy blends are available. As such, the Grapette name was shelved, and the flavor was retired in the United States. While Rice did not have the American rights to the Grapette name, he was able to offer Grapette's flavor, and also promised that if he was able to reacquire the rights for the Grapette name, Walmart could have it. This plan was dropped by Rheingold, placing advertising solely in the hands of Grapette's distributors, resulting in an immediate drop in sales. Grapette specializes in developing unique and delicious flavors for almost any application. After doing a little research, I could not confirm this–no mention of Texarkana. Grapette is a grape-flavored soft drink that was first produced and marketed in 1939 by Benjamin "Tyndle" Fooks. “We do flavors that are spicy and specific to the Latin-American market. This was in 1940 or 1941, I forget exactly when. There, they purchased the Grapette, Orangette, and Lemonette names for $500. When Sam Walton died in 1992, Wal-Mart CEO David Glass felt it would be a fitting tribute to Walton to rename Wal-Mart's private label as "Sam's Choice". We don’t necessarily know what the next big thing is, but we’ll be ready to respond. Further research determined that Goldstein owned a small bottling firm that produced a drink that used one of Fooks' grape flavors, called "Tiny", which it distributed in Virginia and North Carolina, marketed in a six-ounce bottle. “We had begun producing an isotonic sports drink for Walmart,” Paul says. He obtained a copyright for the name Grapette and began selling the drink at Camden in 1940. I spent about 3 hours on the "net" and phone trying to find grapette for my wife, and finally talked to a very nice gentleman at "Grapette.com" (David Rice) who told me that they had an exclusive marketing deal with Walmart and that Grapette was available in 2L bottles. Grapette's first-year sales were quite promising.

Instead, there are labs where the company continually experiments with new flavors and colors. Grapette was one of those hometown soft drinks that made it big. In 1993, Rice again began manufacturing soft drinks for Walmart, this time under the Sam's Choice brand. Good article Rex. The Grapette product also made a brief reappearance, being sold by Walmart stores under the name of "Ozark Farms Sparkling Grape" and "Walmart Grape". Fooks would work late into the night in the syrup room of his Camden plant. In 2000, Rice walked into the Wal-Mart Home Office in Bentonville, Arkansas, in order to personally deliver the news to David Glass: Monarch was finally selling the Grapette name. While demand for Grapette’s animal syrups proved to be extremely successful, the manual labor involved in filling, labeling, and sealing the irregular shaped bottles proved too slow and costly, so the search for a replacement was began. United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. Finally, in early 2000, after numerous attempts to purchase back the U.S. rights to the lost trademarks, Grapette International was successful. The name Grapette wasn’t in the stores until after Walton’s death in 1992. The story of Grapette actually begins with its founder, Benjamin Tyndle Fooks. Grapette is now produced by Grapette International, and is marketed in the United States by Walmart as part of its Sam's Choice line of soft drinks. Brand: Grapette: Caffeine … Those were the years of the corner grocery, with paint-chipped wooden cases rattling with favorite regional brands. Thus Grapette had returned to American shelves, albeit under a new name. With the success in sales, marketing of Grapette was expanded to much of the United States, and the slogan "Thirsty or Not" was developed for use in advertising. Grapette Grape Soda - 12 oz cans - 12pk Brand: Grapette. Although sometimes a struggle, the business was successful and two years later Fooks (pronounced like “folks”) bought a second bottling plant in Arkadelphia, about sixty miles from Camden. FRESH 12oz Grapette with SUGAR!! Over the next four decades, vast improvements and dramatic innovations were made in packaging and bottling including the introduction of the canned soft drink. Rice had profited by becoming an early investor in a business called Walmart, founded by Sam Walton. Rice had been an early Walmart stockholder and began considering ways to partner with the company. Grapette is now produced by Grapette International, and is marketed in the United States by Wal-Mart as part of its Sam's Choice line of soft drinks. Sugar, which was subject to wartime rationing, was obtained by adding water to granulated sugar, thus liquefying it, enabling it to be sold as syrup, which was not subject to rationing. Grapette is SQF certified and registered with the FDA. The early years of his new company were ones of experimentation, especially in flavor development. Rheingold changed the name of the company from Grapette to Flavette, and relocated the company headquarters to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In 1962, Grapette introduced a line of cola drinks to compete with Coca-Cola under the name of "Mr. Cola". It was at Camden in 1926 that a service station owner named Benjamin Tyndle Fooks learned that a local bottling plant was for sale and decided to purchase the business. Drinks aren’t actually bottled at the Malvern plant. By the late nineteenth century, bottled soda had come of age in America with over five hundred bottling plants producing some 260 million bottles of soda a year. Despite the brand's retirement in the United States, May retained ownership of Grapette International, and Grapette was still produced internationally, remaining a popular drink. with Paul’s daughters. FRESH 4 Pk 12oz Grapette soda. But company executives remembered the founder’s wishes. Goldstein, however, had never used the Grapette, Orangette, or Lemonette names.

Fooks even introduced a challenger to Coca-Cola in 1962 with Mr. Cola, known for its distinctive 16-ounce bottles. Lemonette, which contained a large amount of real citrus juice, came along in 1946. He was born in 1901 on a farm near Paducah, Ky. His family moved to Camden in 1914, and Fooks finished high school there in 1918. From this, Fooks, dissatisfied with existing grape sodas on the market, sought to develop a grape soda that tasted the way he believed that a grape soda should taste. The government has also restricted one of the ingredients that originally made the drink’s color so rich. A lot of gratitude goes to Walmart.