Fresca is a
grapefruit
The grapefruit (''Citrus'' × ''paradisi'') is a subtropical citrus tree known for its relatively large, sour to semi-sweet, somewhat bitter fruit. The flesh of the fruit is segmented and varies in color from pale yellow to dark red.
Grapefru ...
-flavored citrus
soft drink
A soft drink (see #Terminology, § Terminology for other names) is a class of non-alcoholic drink, usually (but not necessarily) Carbonated water, carbonated, and typically including added Sweetness, sweetener. Flavors used to be Natural flav ...
created by
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. It manufactures, sells and markets soft drinks including Coca-Cola, other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. Its stock is lis ...
. Borrowing the word ''Fresca'' (meaning "fresh") from
Italian,
Spanish, and
Portuguese, it was introduced in the United States in 1966. Originally a bottled sugar-free
diet soda
Diet sodas (also known as sugar-free sodas, zero-calorie sodas, low-calorie sodas or zero-sugar sodas) are soft drinks which contain little or no sugar and/or calories. First introduced onto the market in 1949, diet sodas are typically marketed ...
, sugar sweetened versions were introduced in some markets.
History
Trademarks
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, "Fresca" was first trademarked by The Coca-Cola Company in July 1962 as a trade name for "frozen concentrated orange juice" and "frozen concentrated tangerine juice". The company also applied for a trademark for "Fresca" in 1962 as a "Non-alcoholic Maltless Soft Drink and the Syrups for Preparing Soft Drinks". In 1969, the company applied for a trademark for "Fresca" as a trade name for "soft drinks and syrups and concentrates for making same".
Fresca as a soft drink
The Coca-Cola Company described the original Fresca soft drink formula as "a citrus-based, sugar free product - a soft drink, a low-calorie beverage, a mixer, all in one" and said the Fresca name was picked because the word is "short, memorable and distinctive". Fresca was the second artificially sweetened, low-calorie product launched by The Coca-Cola Company. Coca-Cola's
Tab, an artificially sweetened, low-calorie cola made its debut in 1963.
Fresca competes primarily against
Keurig Dr Pepper's Squirt.
Test marketing
Coca-Cola began limited test marketing of Fresca in 1964.
1965 saw expanded test marketing in Providence, Rhode Island, and Seattle-Tacoma, Washington. It was also advertised for sale in Michigan and Ohio in late 1965.
Introduction
Fresca was introduced across the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
and in international markets in 1966.
Since its introduction,
Fresca has been marketed in the United States as a sugar-free, citrus (lime and grapefruit) flavored
diet soft drink.
In 1966 then Coca-Cola Company president
J. Paul Austin announced the company's profits had doubled since 1959 and said "Other developments, notably the introduction of Fresca, now underway, promise further advancement in the refreshment industry".
Multiple references in contemporary newspapers and Coca-Cola corporate websites refer to a wide 1966 US and international rollout of the Fresca soft drink brand.
In 1967 Larrie L. Isenring, general manager of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Madison (Wisconsin) said the "newly introduced Fresca and pre-brewed coffee were the company's fastest growing products".
Sales of Fresca quickly exploded. By March 1967,
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. forecast increasing profits for Coca-Cola, saying "we believe Fresca... may be the nation's number three soft drink by the end of the year".
In 1968, it was introduced into the Australian market under the name Tresca, where it was solidly marketed as a diet drink.
By 1969, Fresca had the highest market share of all artificially sweetened soft drinks in America.
Original bottle design
Fresca was originally sold in 10 ounce bottles designed by the industrial design firm Hodgman-Bourke of New York, New York. The green glass bottle featured a groove under the logo panel designed to catch condensation from the top half of the bottle. Dimples on the bottle's lower half were meant to represent bubbles from the soda's carbonation.
Initial marketing campaign
"Blizzard of Flavor"
F. William Free, creative director of the Marschalk Company advertising agency, created the initial marketing campaign for Fresca, branding the soda "the 'Blizzard of Flavor'. Free had earlier orchestrated the introduction of Sprite and Tab for Coca-Cola.
The agency's unifying theme for the brand's marketing centered around Fresca having a "blizzard" of "frosty taste". The soda was said to be "cool, crisp, frosty and refreshing".
A 1966 newspaper ad headline read "Here. The frosty taste of Fresca. It's a blizzard". The ad copy used 25 adjectives to describe Fresca's "blizzard taste".
National newspaper introduction advertising
The "Blizzard" campaign included a major market, full color pre-print newspaper advertising program reported to have cost "over a million dollars" which launched in the spring of 1967. The campaign consisted of three successive themes. The first was "Blizzard Kickoff", aimed at supporting the local introduction of Fresca by regional bottlers, the second was "Fresca and Sherbet" which explained how to use Fresca and other food ingredients for snacks and drinks. The third was named "Blizzard Girls" which featured "The Fresca Girls", models dressed in fur-trimmed parkas with hoods, photographed drinking Fresca in falling snow while riding a zebra, a miniature car, a Vespa scooter and walking a Saint Bernard. The campaign achieved some of the highest levels of consumer awareness for any consumer product at that time.
Musical theme song
The marketing campaign included a theme song "The Blizzard Song", written by
Gary McFarland which was recorded by
Mitch Miller and
Trini Lopez. Both versions were used in TV ads for Fresca and were also issued as a four-song 45 rpm record.
The Miller record "Mitch Miller – Singin' Up A Blizzard", featured a sleeve printed with the slogan "Hey gang, sing up a blizzard with us! Mitch". The reverse of the sleeve featured a headline "Have a Singing, Swing Blizzard of a Party With Fresca" and included recipes of food and mixed drinks that used Fresca as an ingredient. The Miller record was used in a promotion campaign which encouraged consumers to save Fresca bottle caps and redeem them for a copy of the record.
The Lopez record "Trini Lopez – Sings His Greatest Hits" featured three songs from Lopez' repertoire as well as his version of McFarland's "The Blizzard Song". This record was issued with a printed sleeve with an ad on the back that said "The frosty taste of Fresca. It's a blizzard!" The sleeve had a flap with a die-cut hole and was hung from a bottle in six and eight-pack bottle cartons of Fresca. The record was included at no charge.
New York City marketing launch and blizzard
F. William Free orchestrated an elaborate formal marketing debut on February 7, 1967, held at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York city's Seagram's building. The fountain in the middle of the restaurant was frozen, and six "Fresca bottles", women who wore replicas of the top half of Fresca bottles covering their head to their waists skated and danced through the night while the Mitch Miller Orchestra entertained guests with the Fresca "Blizzard Theme" and other hits.
The "Blizzard" campaign took advantage of an incredible, unplanned marketing opportunity. The day after the Four Seasons premiere, New York City received a foot of snow. Free took advantage of the snow storm and created memorable marketing for the new brand. Free was photographed holding a bottle of Fresca in the middle of the snow storm. His photograph appeared in full-page Fresca New York newspaper ads the next day with the headline "New York – We're Sorry".
Notable Fresca fans
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
was known to greatly enjoy Fresca, which was introduced late in his term. Most days Johnson would push his "Fresca button" to order a bottle of Fresca, often accompanied by his favorite
chicken fried steak and
mashed potatoes.
Bravo network television host
Andy Cohen
Andrew Joseph Cohen (born June 2, 1968) is an American radio and television talk show host, producer, and writer. He is the host and executive producer of ''The Real Housewives'' Multimedia franchise, franchise and Bravo (American TV network), B ...
often drinks a "Frequila" during his show. The
cocktail
A cocktail is a mixed drink, usually alcoholic beverage, alcoholic. Most commonly, a cocktail is a combination of one or more liquor, spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as juices, flavored syrups, tonic water, Shrub (drink), shrubs, and ...
is a mixture of Fresca and
tequila
Tequila (; ) is a liquor, distilled beverage made from the blue agave plant, primarily in the area surrounding the city of Tequila, Jalisco, Tequila northwest of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Guadalajara, and in the Jaliscan Highlands (''Los Altos (Jal ...
.
David Plotz, former editor of online magazine
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
and founder and CEO of the local-news podcast network, City Cast is said to be "a hard-core addict of the citrus-flavored soft drink" Fresca.
Fresca is prominently featured in the superhero television series ''
The Boys'', where it is the favored drink of the
cult
Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...
ish Church of the Collective, leading to fan speculation as to its potential meaning. It was eventually revealed that the show's writers found it "hilarious" that cult members would drink Fresca, and it just became a running gag with no deeper meaning.
Formula changes
Fresca was originally marketed in the United States as a sugar-free, citrus (lime and grapefruit) flavored
diet soft drink.
Fresca has undergone several major ingredient and formula changes since its introduction. Fresca was originally sweetened with
cyclamates which were banned by the FDA in 1969. They were replaced with
saccharin and in turn, they were replaced by
NutraSweet-brand
aspartame
Aspartame is an artificial non-saccharide sweetener commonly used as a sugar substitute in foods and beverages. 200 times sweeter than sucrose, it is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide with brand names NutraSwe ...
.
According to The Coca-Cola Company, in 1980 an improved Fresca formulation, supported by new packaging, brand graphics and advertising, reached full national availability. The brand refresh was supported by "the most extensive sampling program ever conducted for a soft drink product". Around the time of the 2005 Fresca redesign,
acesulfame potassium was added as a secondary sweetener.

Coca-Cola marketed a sugar sweetened version of Fresca in
Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
. In 1997,
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. It manufactures, sells and markets soft drinks including Coca-Cola, other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. Its stock is lis ...
responded to requests for this product from immigrant communities by launching it throughout the US as
Citra. This was a success but is instead sold as the Citrus flavor in Coca-Cola's
Fanta
Fanta () is an American-owned brand of fruit-flavored carbonated soft drinks created by Coca-Cola Deutschland under the leadership of German businessman Max Keith. There are over 200 flavors worldwide. Fanta originated in Germany as a Co ...
line in areas with large Hispanic populations. In
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
and
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
sweetened Fresca is called
Quatro and marketed using Fresca's colors and logos.
Fresca was made available in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
during the early 1990s with a series of colorful ads featuring British-Nigerian actor
Hakeem Kae-Kazim with the slogan "Nothing tastes like Fresca". The soft drink developed a cult following but sales were discontinued.
Packaging changes
Fresca packaging has been redesigned several times. In 2005, Coca-Cola gave Fresca a more contemporary look, Fresca's first packaging makeover since 1995. During this redesign, two new flavors were introduced (''Sparkling Peach Citrus'' and ''Sparkling Black Cherry Citrus'') and the original grapefruit flavor was renamed ''Sparkling Citrus''. Later, "Sparkling" was dropped and the original flavor was renamed ''Original Citrus''. Several additional flavors were added to the line-up after 2005, but those flavors were dropped.
Coca-Cola announced revamped packaging again in 2018 along with a new marketing campaign targeted towards
millennials
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s a ...
– the first Fresca advertising since 2008 – with the stated intention of "reeling in a new generation of drinkers unfamiliar with the brand". The marketing described it as a "sparkling flavored soda", meant to compete with other sparkling beverage products such as
La Croix and
Izze.
In 2018, Fresca also rebranded itself as "Fresca Sparkling Soda Water", reformulated in four flavors, Grapefruit Citrus, Black Cherry Citrus, Peach Citrus and Blackberry Citrus and described as "The original no sugar, no calorie sparkling beverage".
In the US, Fresca is currently sold in plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
Ingredients
Fresca Grapefruit Citrus
United States and Canada:
*
Carbonated water
Carbonated water is water containing dissolved carbon dioxide gas, either artificially injected under pressure, or occurring due to natural geological processes. Carbonation causes small bubbles to form, giving the water an effervescent quali ...
*
Citric acid
Citric acid is an organic compound with the formula . It is a Transparency and translucency, colorless Weak acid, weak organic acid. It occurs naturally in Citrus, citrus fruits. In biochemistry, it is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, ...
*
Concentrate
A concentrate is a form of Chemical substance, substance that has had the majority of its diluting agent or diluent (in the case of a liquid: the solvent) removed, such that the substance becomes the majority of the composition. Typically, this w ...
d
grapefruit juice
*
Potassium citrate
*
Aspartame
Aspartame is an artificial non-saccharide sweetener commonly used as a sugar substitute in foods and beverages. 200 times sweeter than sucrose, it is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide with brand names NutraSwe ...
*
Potassium sorbate
*
Acacia gum
*
Acesulfame potassium
*
Natural flavors
*
Glycerol ester of wood rosin
*
Potassium benzoate
*
Calcium Disodium EDTA
*
Carob bean gum
See also
*
Grapefruit–drug interactions
Notes
References
External links
Official Fresca product website
{{Citrus sodas
Coca-Cola brands
Diet drinks
Grapefruit sodas
Products introduced in 1966
Soft drinks