Get ready to loosen your belts.
Jones Soda, the Seattle-based craft soda brand, announced today that it is bringing back for a limited time its (in)famous Turkey & Gravy Soda as a special release timed to the company’s 25th anniversary this year.
The relaunch is the third special release flavor this year, following the limited launch of Birthday Cake Soda and Pineapple Cream. Turkey & Gravy is zero calories, sweetened with sucralose and is available in 12 oz. bottles.
Originally released in 2003, Turkey & Gravy Soda is just what it sounds like — a novelty seasonal SKU and an eye-grabbing, stomach flipping curio that even traumatized employees described as “horrifying.” But consumers apparently felt otherwise: An early experiment in beverage ecommerce, the flavor launched exclusively on the company’s website, with proceeds going to the Toys for Tots charity, and sold out of its initial 6,000 bottle production run in three hours. Turkey & Gravy subsequently gained wide notoriety through mainstream media coverage, with bottles selling in the high double digits on eBay, cementing Jones’ reputation for inventive and unique flavors.
Though Turkey & Gravy wasn’t Jones’ first funky flavor, it was by far their biggest success and an early example of a beverage brand going viral in the internet era. The company continued to produce offbeat seasonal flavors, including annual Thanksgiving meal packs with flavors like Mashed Potatoes & Butter, Green Bean Casserole, and, aptly, Antacid. Additional Holiday themed lines around Halloween and Christmas followed with releases as late as 2013, and a tie-in with NFL team the Seattle Seahawks led to Perspiration, Natural Field Turf and Dirt flavored sodas. The company even capitalized on the Turkey & Gravy name with a brand partnership with plant-based brand Tofurky in 2009 so vegetarians could gag down a bottle of the signature product without raising an eyebrow.
Vintage bottles of these limited seasonals can still be found for sale online in the collector’s market, but despite becoming synonymous with the Jones Soda brand in the minds of many consumers, the original Turkey & Gravy has been out of production since 2006.
According to CEO Mark Murray, who joined the company as a consultant last spring before being named chief executive in December, he was inspired to bring the flavor back for a 35,000 bottle run after meeting numerous fans of the brand who talked about their love for the savory seasonal drink.
“Coming into the brand with a fresh set of eyes, the thing that just absolutely blew me away was the latent equity of this brand,” Murray said. “These consumers are just so loyal. I was traveling back and forth to Dallas and I’d be wearing a Jones shirt or sweatshirt and people would not only stop me and say ‘I love your soda,’ but I swear almost every time there was some comment about Turkey & Gravy.”
Murray, the former president of JGC Foods, joined Jones as the publicly traded company faced a turbulent period with sales declining consistently quarter by quarter. In April 2020, longtime CEO Jennifer Cue resigned her position, a move that was swiftly followed by a series of layoffs that saw the exit of nearly the entire sales team. However, with Murray guiding strategy, the brand reported a return to growth in November and the company has continued to perform well since then. Last month, Jones announced its highest Q2 sales numbers since 2012 and its first profitable quarter since 2016, with total quarterly revenue up 44% to $4.5 million.
Much of Murray’s approach to the rebuild has been to hone in on Jones’ legacy as a Gen X favorite, while also working to draw in younger Gen Z consumers. Last summer, the brand re-enlisted celebrity ambassador Tony Hawk for a 10-day cross-country van tour, which sent the message that “Jones is back” to both shoppers and employees, Murray said. Now, he’s hoping Turkey & Gravy will show that Jones can continue to return to its classic playbook.
While the company is the first to admit the Turkey & Gravy flavor is, well, not good, Murray said the drink has historically been a powerful driver of organic audience engagement. In 2003, this meant a string of stories on morning shows and late night television, but today the strategy is tailored around an influencer-driven social media environment.
Maisie Antoniello, VP of marketing at Jones, said the company is working with a PR firm and an influencer team who are currently reaching out and sending some of the 35,000 individually numbered bottles to creators on platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
“The fact that we have people remembering that we did this 17 years ago is amazing to me,” Murray said. “And the thing that’s exciting about it is there’s a whole generation of people that may have heard about it, but have never tried it.”
Turkey & Gravy will be available in conventional retail accounts in the U.S. and Canada, including Kroger, but if the promotion goes well Murray said he anticipates the bottles might have a secondary market value on platforms like eBay. Jones is already aiming to bring the flavor back next year, with other potential seasonal flavors timed around other holidays also being considered. However, Murray noted that he’s cautious not to put too much emphasis on the gimmicks as it could risk Jones becoming just another novelty item.
“We don’t want to really be just the gimmick guys,” he said. “You’ve got to be very strategic, you can’t put strain on the operations. It’s one thing about putting a strain on our internal operations … but there’s also a flow through to about 120 different distributors and all sorts of different retailers on their shelf, so you’ve got to think about the whole supply chain when you do these kinds of things. But we do believe there is an opportunity to do this more than once.”
Beyond the Thanksgiving table, Jones is also moving forward with plans to enter the cannabis industry. In 2019, cannabis investment firm SOL Global took a minority stake in the company and, in July, Jones signed a letter of intent to develop products in the cannabis space. Murray said the company is currently working towards finalizing a definitive agreement with Canadian reporting issuer Pinestar Gold Inc. in order to begin production of the new products, which could potentially come as soon as November.
“[Cannabis] is an opportunity to create a business within the business that’s going to generate tremendous cash flow and we hope that will raise the brand awareness for Jones across the core business,” he said. “So we’re moving very, very fast…. We’re not just sitting back waiting for a definitive, we’re working all sorts of different work streams around getting ready.”