Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:35, 20 December 2005

Yoo-Hoo is the name of a chocolate-flavored American soft drink, somewhat similar to Chocolate Soldier.

History

Yoo-Hoo dates back to the 1920s, when Mr. Natale Olivieri sold Tru-Fruit soft drinks in his small store. Olivieri thought he could produce a chocolate soft drink and make profits. He liked to produce soft drinks that were all-natural, without any types of additives.

Olivieri was at his home's kitchen with his wife, who was preparing her home-made tomato sauce one day when Olivieri thought he could preserve chocolate beverages by using the same method his wife used to make the sauce. He asked his wife to use the process on six of the chocolate drinks he had prepared. Three of the drinks got spoiled, and Mr. Olivieri thought agitation would also be needed to produce an all natural chocolate drink. Because of that, he bought a rotating pressure retort. Soon after, his first group of chocolate drinks was sold.

The name Yoo-Hoo was already being used for Mr. Olivieri's other fruit drinks, so naturally, he applied Yoo-Hoo to his chocolate-flavored drink too.

(Sources in the beverage industry claim that Yoo-Hoo owes its famously open-ended shelf life to a steam sterilization process that takes place after the bottles are filled and capped, but before the labels are applied. As long as it is sealed, Yoo-Hoo cannot go sour.)

Yoo-Hoo would soon begin to be bottled by an important bottling company and to be sold at supermarkets.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Yoo-Hoo went through a very large promotional campaign that included Yogi Berra and the New York Yankees officially sponsoring the drink. The image of Berra drinking a bottle of Yoo-Hoo while wearing a suit, in particular, became famous.

Also during the '50s, B.B.C. Industries took over Yoo-Hoo. They held ownership until 1976, when it was bought by Iroquois Brands, which, in turn, sold Yoo-Hoo in 1981 to a group of private investors, which in turn sold Yoo-Hoo to Pernod Ricard in 1989.

In 2001, Pernod Ricard sold Yoo-Hoo to Cadbury Schweppes.

The soft drink company's headquarters are in Carlstadt, New Jersey, with plants in Hialeah, Florida and Opelousas, Louisiana.

Ingredients

Classic chocolate flavor:

Water, dairy whey, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, non-fat milk, corn syrup solids, cocoa (processed with potassium carbonate), soybean oil (partially hydrogenated), sodium caseinate (protein source), salt, tricalcium phosphate, dipotassium phosphate, xanthum gum, guar gum, mono-and diglycerides, vanillin (an artificial flavor), soy lechitin, calcium ascorbate (vitamin C), natural flavor, vitamin A palmiate, niacinamide (vitamin B3), vitamin D3 and riboflavoin (vitamin B2)

Nutrition Facts

Classic chocolate flavor, serving size 8 fluid ounces (US):

Calories 130, fat calories 10, total fat 1g, saturated fat 0.5g, polyunsaturated fat 0g, monounsaturated fat 0g, cholesterol 0mg, sodium 180mg, potassium 140mg, total carbohydrates 29g, fiber 0g, sugars 20g, protein 2g

Flavors

Current

• Chocolate
• Double Fudge
• Strawberry
• Dyna-Mocha
• Yoo-Hoo Lite
• Cookies 'N Cream

Discontinued

• Vanilla
• Coconut (however, Koko Blanco uses the same formula)
• Eggnog
• Chocolate-Banana
• Chocolate-Strawberry
• Chocolate-Coconut
• Chocolate-Mint
• Chocolate-Raspberry
• Chocolate-Orange

Popular Culture

• In the mid-1990s, Yoo-Hoo was extensively parodied by Nickelodeon. During this period, several Nicktoons (primarily The Angry Beavers but also Hey Arnold and others) featured the fictional beverage brand Ya-Hoo! Chocolate Soda.

External link

• http://drinkyoo-hoo.com – Yoo-Hoo Official Website
• http://yoohooworld.tripod.com – Yoo-Hoo World

• Cadbury-Schweppes brands
• Chocolate beverages
• Soft drinks