Canada Dry Bottling Company, now with 75 years of history in Lansing, has added two new drinks to its 40-product line. One targets kids’ yen for sweet sodas while the other aims to “slow the roll” of over-caffeinated young adults.
Three Michigan State University (MSU) graduates have just joined the family-owned wholesale distributor to sell the drinks throughout the Capital region and six other counties that surround it.
While it started as a bottler, Canada Dry Bottling now distributes drinks made elsewhere.
The new “Jungle Juice” is pegged as an alternative soda pop bearing only half the sugar of most regular soft drinks. With kid-friendly names like Blue Hippo Raspberry and Pink Flamingo Lemonade, its five 
flavors come in 10 oz. plastic bottles and have 80 calories apiece.
It’s made in Kentwood, near Grand Rapids, and is marketed as a Michigan product.
Brian Breen, of Canada Dry, expects Jungle Juice to appeal to parents concerned about the sugary drinks that are a factor in childhood obesity. Jungle Juice contains natural fruit juice concentrate and real sugar; it has no high fructose corn syrup.
The other beverage, "drank,” is called a relaxation drink, the antithesis of an energy drink. It’s made for people looking to relax their mind and body, says Breen: lightly carbonated, grape-flavored and infused with melatonin, valerian root and rose hips. It hit the Michigan market in April when Canada Dry became the first in the state to distribute the Houston-based product.
Both drinks may be found in convenience stores and gas stations.
The new sales people, all in their first real jobs out of college, bring the sales force up to nine. They rely heavily on technology like hand-held computers and the Internet to place their orders, Breen says.
Source: Brian Breen, Canada Dry Bottling Company
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.