Evolution Fresh Real Fruit Soda

Cold-Pressed Organic Splendid Carrot features carrots accented with a sweet citrus burst from orange and pineapple. Cold-Pressed Organic Avocado Greens has a tropical sweetness from pineapple and orange.

We may be facing the last throes of summer, but it’s clear that cold-pressed juice companies are anything but content to lean back and soak in the sun.

Before the NBA fined and handed down a lifetime ban to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, most sponsors of the basketball franchise were fleeing and expressing their criticisms. While some sponsors have already returned to the Clippers, a few beverage companies haven’t done the same.

An article in The Wall Street Journal by reporter Mike Esterl notes that food and beverage products labeled as “natural,” such as PepsiCo’s Naked juice, are beginning to shed the hazy modifier. Also, last Thursday, the FDA proposed measures that would “all but eliminate” artificial trans fats, a major contributor to heart disease in the U.S., from the food supply.

Fourteen months after acquiring the brand, Starbucks today launched Evolution Fresh products in its cafés in New York City and Boston. The company said that while East Coast availability of Evolution Fresh will initially be limited to its stores in the two cities, the expansion “furthers growth plans to be in approximately 8,000 Starbucks and grocery locations by the end of the year.”

Starbucks has announced plans to dramatically increase the production and distribution capacity of Evolution Fresh juices with the construction of a new juicing plant in Southern California. Starbucks, which acquired the ultra-premium juice company in November, will replace the company’s current manufacturing plant in San Berdardino, Calif. with a new high-tech facility in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., set to open in late 2013.

It didn’t take long for Evolution Juice to realize its dream of using high-pressure pasteurization to go across the country.

But it’s going to take a less traditional route to doing it – because it’s going to be carried on the fins of the Starbucks mermaid.

The coffee giant yesterday announced today that it was purchasing the four year-old juice company for $30 million, and plans to use it as the lynchpin of a bold move into what chairman Howard Schultz termed a “$50 billion health and wellness sector.”