LaCroix or La Croix ( ) is an American brand of sparkling water that originated in

La Crosse, Wisconsin La Crosse ( ) is a city in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. Positioned alongside the Mississippi River, La Crosse is the largest city on Wisconsin's western border. La Crosse's population was 52,680 as of the 202 ...

, by G. Heileman Brewing Company and is now distributed by National Beverage Corporation. The available flavors include various fruits and fruit blends.

History

In February 1980, the G. Heileman Brewing Company, of

, introduced LaCroix as one of the first "Anti- Perrier" brands, meant to appeal to sparkling water consumers who were put off by Perrier's " snobbish positioning", LaCroix marketed to its niche by imaging itself as an "all occasion" beverage. Its name is pronounced like the St. Croix River, which forms part of Wisconsin's western border. The beverage fared well in popularity and sales in the surrounding

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

region for the following decade. By 1992, the brand was estimated to be worth US$25 million. However, in the same year, due to Heileman's admitted lack of experience outside the beer market, it sold the brand to National Beverage (then Winterbrook). In 2002, National Beverage sought to rebrand LaCroix and ended up settling on a design that was "least favored by management" but won over target consumers in a "landslide". Instead of staying with a clean and simple design like other water brands, they found that a more bold and colorful approach was more appealing to their audience. Since the early 1990s, LaCroix had been a fairly well-known product in the Midwest United States. But when U.S. sugary-soda sales plummeted to a 30-year low in the spring of 2015, National Beverage took the opportunity to expand their consumer base by launching a

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marketing campaign targeting

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 ...

. Sales exploded as the brand developed a national cult following. Their marketing efforts have since helped position LaCroix with mainstream news outlets as a healthier alternative to sugary soda, as well as a mixer for popular

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 ...

Sales

Sales records have never been publicly released, but market research suggests LaCroix holds a 30 percent market share in sparkling water sales in the United States, double that of its main competitor, Perrier.

Lawsuits

Sexual harassment allegations

Nick Caporella, the company's CEO, was accused of

sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment based on the sex or gender of a victim. It can involve offensive sexist or sexual behavior, verbal or physical actions, up to bribery, coercion, and assault. Harassment may be explicit or implicit, wit ...

by two former employee pilots who alleged inappropriate touching on more than 30 trips between 2014 and 2016.Shoot, Brittany (2018-07-03) Fortune Magazine, 3 July 2018.
CEO Behind LaCroix Brand Accused of Inappropriately Touching Airplane Pilots
One lawsuit was settled out of court in January 2018, and one was still pending as of July 2018. Caporella has denied the claims and as of 2023 there has been no turnover.

"All-natural" advertising

In October 2018 a class action lawsuit was filed by

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

law firm Beaumont Costales regarding the "all natural" branding, claiming that LaCroix uses synthetic ingredients including ethyl butanoate,

limonene Limonene () is a colorless liquid aliphatic hydrocarbon classified as a cyclic monoterpene, and is the major component in the essential oil of citrus fruit peels. The (+)-isomer, occurring more commonly in nature as the fragrance of oranges, ...

and linalool propionate.Lawsuit Accuses LaCroix Seltzer of Containing Artificial Ingredients Used in Cockroach Insecticide
Gina Martinez,

TIME magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

, October 6, 2018 The company responded that "all the flavor essences in LaCroix are natural." The plaintiff has since withdrawn the lawsuit and retracted its claims. Another lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York on January 29, 2019, alleging violations of New York’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The lawsuit's claims are based on

isotope analysis Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food we ...

and

gas chromatography Gas chromatography (GC) is a common type of chromatography used in analytical chemistry for Separation process, separating and analyzing compounds that can be vaporized without Chemical decomposition, decomposition. Typical uses of GC include t ...

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is used ...

tests conducted by The Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

. This claim was also voluntarily dropped in September 2020. A similar lawsuit was filed against Polar Beverages in September 2019 regarding its "100% natural" marketing.

Flavors

Explanatory notes

References

External links

* {{Official, http://www.lacroixwater.com/ American soft drinks Carbonated water 1981 establishments in Wisconsin La Crosse, Wisconsin