Gatorade

Gatorade was created in 1965, by a team of scientists at the University of Florida College of Medicine, including Robert Cade, Dana Shires, Harry James Free, and Alejandro de Quesada. Following a request from Florida Gators football head coach Ray Graves, Gatorade was created to help athletes by acting as a replacement for body fluids lost during physical exertion. Like many of the other sports drinks that pre-dated it by decades, such as Lucozade, the earliest version of the beverage consisted of a mixture of water, sodium, sugar, potassium, phosphate, and lemon juice. Ten players on the University of Florida football team tested the first version of Gatorade during practices and games in 1965, and the tests were deemed successful. On the other hand, star quarterback Steve Spurrier said, "I don't have any answer for whether the Gatorade helped us be a better second-half team or not... We drank it, but whether it helped us in the second half, who knows?" Nonetheless, the football team credited Gatorade as having contributed to their first Orange Bowl win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in 1967, at which point the drink gained traction within the athletic community. Yellow Jackets coach Bobby Dodd, when asked why his team lost, replied: "We didn't have Gatorade. That made the difference."

The University of Florida researchers initially considered naming their product "Gator-Aid", but eventually settled on "Gatorade". Darren Rovell notes in his history of Gatorade, First in Thirst, "the doctors realized that they probably shouldn't use the 'Aid' suffix, since that would mean that if the drink were ever marketed, they would have to prove that it had a clear medicinal use and perform clinical tests on thousands of people." Gatorade co-inventor Dana Shires explained, "We were told that you couldn't use that because the Food and Drug Administration prohibited that. That would classify it as something other than a cola or soft drink, so we changed it to ade."

Some were skeptical that the product's effect was anything more than a placebo. Cade mentioned, "If you told a football player that you were giving him Demerol to relieve pain and you gave him a placebo instead, there's about a 30% chance that the placebo will relieve the pain as much as taking Demerol would have."

Shortly after the 1969 Orange Bowl, Robert Cade entered into an agreement providing Stokely-Van Camp, Inc. (S-VC), a canned-food packaging company, with the U.S. rights to production and sale of Gatorade as a commercial product. In the same year, a licensing arrangement made Gatorade the official sports drink of the National Football League (NFL), representing the first in a history of professional sports sponsorship for the Gatorade brand. A year after its commercial introduction, S-VC tested multiple variations of the original Gatorade recipe, finally settling on more palatable variants in lemon-lime and orange flavors. This reformulation also removed the sweetener cyclamate – which was banned by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1969 – replacing it with additional fructose. In the early 1970s, legal questions arose regarding whether or not the researchers who invented Gatorade were entitled to ownership of its royalties since they had been working under a research grant from the federal government which provided financial stipends. The University of Florida also claimed partial rights of ownership, which was brought to resolution in 1973 in the form of a settlement awarding the university with a 20% share of Gatorade royalties. As of 2009, the university had received more than $150 million from its share and was receiving approximately $12 million per year.

The Quaker Oats Company purchased S-VC and Gatorade in 1983 for $220 million, following a bidding war with rival Pillsbury. In its first two decades of production, Gatorade was primarily sold and distributed within the United States. Beginning in the 1980s, the company expanded distribution of Gatorade, venturing into Canada in 1986, regions of Asia in 1987, South America and parts of Europe in 1988, and Australia in 1993. In 1990, Gatorade introduced Gatorade Light, a lower-calorie version sweetened with saccharin. In 1996, international expansion cost the company $20 million in but generated worldwide sales of $283 million in more than 45 countries. In 1997, distribution of Gatorade in an additional 10 countries prompted an 18.7% growth in annual sales.

In 2001, the multinational food and beverage company PepsiCo acquired Gatorade's parent company, the Quaker Oats Company, for $13 billion to add Gatorade to its portfolio of brands. PepsiCo had also recently developed All Sport, which it divested of shortly following the Quaker acquisition to satisfy antitrust regulations. Worldwide development of Gatorade continued into the 2000s, including expansion into India in 2004, and the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2008. As of 2010, Gatorade products were made available for sale in more than 80 countries. As the number-one sports drink by annual retail sales in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Gatorade is also among the leading sports drink brands in South Korea and Australia.

As the distribution of Gatorade expanded outside of the U.S., localized flavors were introduced to conform to regional tastes and cultural preferences, among other factors. For example, Blueberry is available in Colombia, and in Brazil, a Pineapple flavor of Gatorade is sold. In Australia, flavors include Antarctic Freeze and Wild Water Rush. Some flavors that have been discontinued in the U.S., such as Alpine Snow and Starfruit, have since been made available in other countries.

In 2011, Gatorade was re-introduced to New Zealand by Bluebird Foods, a PepsiCo subsidiary in New Zealand. The product is made in Australia by Schweppes Australia, and exported to New Zealand and distributed along with Bluebird potato chips. The license to produce and distribute Gatorade in New Zealand has since been acquired by a local subsidiary of Suntory who manufacture the product at their Auckland bottling plant.

Products

In its early years, the Gatorade brand consisted of a single product line, Gatorade Thirst Quencher, which was produced in liquid and powder form under two flavor variants: Lemon Lime and Orange. These remained as the only two flavor options for nearly 20 years, until the addition of the Fruit Punch flavor in 1983. In 1988, a Citrus Cooler flavor was introduced. The rise to popularity of this flavor was largely a result of Michael Jordan, who, at the height of his NBA career in the early 1990s, stated that it was his favorite flavor. This claim appeared on the packaging beginning in 1991, as part of a 10-year endorsement deal. The Citrus Cooler flavor was reportedly discontinued at some point in the 1990s; however, even as late as 2011, it was listed as being a current product in the U.S. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a Gatorade brand of chewing gum called Gator Gum was produced. The product, manufactured by Fleer Corporation, was available in both of Gatorade's original flavors (lemon-lime and orange). In the late 1970s, Stokely-Van Camp (owner of Gatorade before 1983) negotiated a long-term licensing deal with Swell and Vicks to market Gator Gum. The gum was discontinued in 1989 after the contract expired, but could still be found on shelves in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It was not until the mid and late 1990s that Gatorade beverages became available in a broader range of flavor variations. Among these initial flavor extensions were Watermelon, introduced in 1995, and Cherry Rush, Strawberry Kiwi, and Mandarina flavors, added in 1996. In January 1997, Gatorade launched a new sub-line called Gatorade Frost with the intent of broadening the brand's appeal beyond traditional team competitive sports. Three initial flavors under the Frost product line were introduced at this time: Alpine Snow, Glacier Freeze, and Whitewater Splash. Aimed at what the company described as the 'active thirst' category – a market ten times the size of the sports drink segment – Gatorade Frost proved to be successful, far surpassing the company's initial expectations. Flavors in the Frost line were the first from Gatorade to divert from fruit names; it was described as consisting of "light-tasting fruit-flavor blends".

Gatorade revealed the Gatorade Energy Bar in 2001. This bar was Gatorade's first foray into solid foods and was introduced to compete with PowerBar and Clif Bar. Gatorade Energy Bars contained a large proportion of protein, in addition to carbohydrates. The bar was primarily made up of puffed grains and corn syrup, common components of other energy bars. In 2001, Gatorade introduced the Gatorade Performance Series, a special line of sports nutrition products. These products include Gatorade Carbohydrate Energy Drink, Gatorade Protein Recovery Shake, the Gatorade Nutrition Shake, and the Gatorade Nutrition Bar. The Endurance Formula, introduced in 2004, contained twice the sodium and three times the potassium of the typical Gatorade formula as well as chloride, magnesium, and calcium, to better replace what athletes lose while training and competing.

Introduced in 2002, Gatorade Ice was marketed as a lighter flavored Gatorade and came in Strawberry, Lime, Orange, and Watermelon. All of these flavors were colorless and transparent. Ice was re-branded in 2006 as Gatorade Rain and the flavor selections altered. In late 2007, a low-calorie line of Gatorade drinks, named G2, was released. G2 was meant for athletes off the field and those who practiced physical activities, such as yoga, at home. As of 2015, G2 has been produced in eight flavors: Orange, Fruit Punch, Grape, Lemon-Lime, Tropical blend, Blueberry-Pomegranate, Raspberry Melon, and Glacier Freeze. SymphonyIRI Group named G2 the "top new food product of 2008", noting that the product generated retail sales of $159.1 million in its first full year of production.