To Silence Support For GMO Labeling, Big Food And Wall Street Are Buying Up Natural Brands

September 27th, 2015

Awake Goy

One of the fastest growing natural juice brands in the country is adding
Coca-Cola and Goldman Sachs to its lineup of stakeholders. ~ Ethan A Huff

The Suja Juice company, a California startup that has seen massive growth over
the past several years, currently offers cold-pressed, unpasteurized,
non-GMO and certified organic juices to health-savvy consumers.

Will
this change if the company’s new part-owners start calling the shots?

Suja
appears to be going the way of Naked Juice and Odwalla, two popular
juice companies that were bought out by PepsiCo and Coca-Cola
respectively after they gained rapid popularity.

As consumers shy away
from sugar and chemical laden soda beverages to improve their health,
many are turning to these reinvented juice products as an alternative,
and Big Food wants a piece of the pie.

Coca-Cola, which still
boasts more than $46 billion in annual revenues, is beginning to take a
hit from the public’s rejection of junk foods such as bottled soda.

In
order to maintain relevance, it is spreading its tentacles as far and
wide as possible, capitalizing on healthy juice products that fetch
upwards of $4, $8, and even $10 for a 16-ounce bottle.

“Coke is
paying roughly $90 million for a nearly 30% stake in San Diego-based
Suja, with an option to buy all of the company after three years,
according to people familiar with the matter,” reports The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Together, Coca-Cola and Goldman Sachs now own 50 percent of Suja

What makes Suja unique is the fact that it’s currently offered in
retail stores and is not traditionally associated with health food.
Generic grocery chains such as Kroger and “big box” stores such Target,
for example, now feature cold cases full of Suja.

One popular
flavor, “Fuel”, is an apple, pineapple, lemon and turmeric-infused
superfood juice.

Suja’s “Spark” is a superfood juice containing the
tartness and spiciness of raspberry, lemon, and cayenne combined with
the sweetness of honey and stevia. Suja’s best-selling juice variety is
“Mighty Greens,” a blend of 14 fruits and vegetables including apple,
alfalfa grass, and kale.

Since its launch in 2012, Suja has seen
incredible sales growth, doubling its revenues from 2013 to 2014. The
company’s sales figures are expected to double again in 2015, which is
why Suja was also named among the top most promising companies.

With
Coca-Cola as Suja’s new majority owner, this junk food conglomerate
will surely have a lot of sway in where the companies moves from here.

For example, even though California is set to label glyphosate as a
carcinogen, Suja is unlikely to become an outspoken supporter of
mandatory labeling laws for genetically-modified organisms considering
the fact that Coca-Cola was caught funneling at least $1.5 million to
anti-labeling lobbying efforts.

Suja probably won’t have much to
say about Wall Street corruption either, as the infamous Goldman Sachs
bank is also purchasing a sizable ownership share in the company.

“The
merchant banking arm of Goldman Sachs also agreed to pay about $60
million for a 20% stake (in Suja), valuing the closely held company at
about $300 million,” explains the WSJ.

Will Coca-Cola soon take full ownership of Suja?

Marrying Coca-Cola and Goldman Sachs with a brand dedicated to helping
people transform their lives through nutrition is antithetical to say
the least. Both of these corporations are enemies of transparency,
diverging from the principles on which Suja was founded. How will this
unholy alliance affect the future of this growing namesake brand?

Suja
will likely remain silent on pertinent issues relating to
biotechnology, GMO labeling and financial system reform because its top
owners are kingpins in these corrupt industries.

If Coca-Cola eventually
takes full ownership of Suja, which is what has happened in the past
with other companies in which it purchased “minority” shares, there is
no telling the level of deception that consumers can expect.

Source

September 24, 2015 – KnowTheLies.com

References