Yoo-hoo is an American brand of

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods. Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...

-flavored beverage that was created by Natale Olivieri in Garfield, New Jersey, in 1928 and is currently manufactured by

Keurig Dr Pepper Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. ( ), formerly Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (1979–2014) and Keurig Green Mountain (2014–2018), is a publicly traded American beverage and coffeemaker conglomerate with headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, and ...

. As of 2019, the drink is primarily made from water,

high-fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), also known as glucose–fructose, isoglucose, and glucose–fructose syrup, is a sweetener made from corn starch. As in the production of conventional corn syrup, the starch is broken down into glucose by enzy ...

and

whey Whey is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It is a byproduct of the manufacturing of cheese or casein and has several commercial uses. Sweet whey is a byproduct resulting from the manufacture of rennet types of hard c ...

History

Yoo-hoo was created in Garfield, New Jersey, in 1928 by Natale Olivieri, who had been bottling carbonated fruit drinks. In the 1940s, Thomas Giresi opened a bottling plant in Batesburg, South Carolina, for distribution of Yoo-hoo. In the 1960s, an advertising campaign tried to appeal to an older public for the drink, and featured

Yogi Berra Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (born Lorenzo Pietro Berra; May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of Manager (baseball), manager and Coach (baseball), coach. He played 19 seas ...

and his

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...

teammates. Berra, in a pin-striped business suit, drinks a bottle of Yoo-hoo, lifts it next to his cheek, and says with a smile, "It's Me-He for Yoo-Hoo!" Later, Yoo-hoo advertised as: Yoo-hoo, the chocolate action drink. BBC Industries purchased the rights to Yoo-hoo sometime in the 1950s and retained ownership until 1976, when it sold the brand to Iroquois Brands. Yoo-hoo was sold again in 1981 to a group of private investors, which owned the brand until 1989, when it was sold to the French conglomerate

Pernod Ricard Pernod Ricard () is a French company best known for its anise-flavoured pastis apéritifs Pernod Anise and Ricard Pastis (often referred to simply as ''Pernod'' or '' Ricard''). The world's second-largest wine and spirits seller, it also produ ...

. In 2001, Pernod Ricard sold Yoo-hoo to

Cadbury Schweppes Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational corporation, multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelez International (spun off from Kraft Foods, Inc., Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second-largest c ...

, with production responsibilities falling to CS's Mott's group and marketing and advertising responsibilities under Snapple. They heightened awareness of the once-popular beverage. The drink company's headquarters are in

Tarrytown, New York Tarrytown is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in the administrative divisions of New York#Town, town of Greenburgh, New York, Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, Unit ...

, with plants in

Carlstadt, New Jersey Carlstadt is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 6,372, an increase of 245 (+4.0%) from the 2010 United S ...

, and Aspers, Pennsylvania. An

Opelousas, Louisiana Opelousas (; ) is a small city and the parish seat of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States. Interstate 49 in Louisiana, Interstate 49 and U.S. Route 190 in Louisiana, U.S. Route 190 were constructed with a ju ...

, location closed in 2009. At one time, Yoo-hoo owned several other chocolate milk brands as well, including Choc-Ola, Brownie, Cocoa Dusty, and Chocolate Soldier. In May 2008, Cadbury-Schweppes split into the

Cadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelez International (spun off from Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second-largest confectionery brand in the world, after Mars. ...

candy business and the

Dr Pepper Snapple Group Dr Pepper Snapple Group was an American multinational soft drink company based in Plano, Texas. Since July 2018, it is a business unit of the publicly-traded conglomerate Keurig Dr Pepper. Formerly Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, part of ...

soft drink firm, with the latter taking over Yoo-hoo.

Alleged misleading advertising

In 2010, a legal suit was brought against the Dr Pepper Snapple Group in New York state by Timothy Dahl. The suit alleged that the Dr Pepper Snapple Group engaged in misleading advertising as to the nutritional makeup of Yoo-hoo. Papers filed by Dahl claimed that the drink "contains dangerous, unhealthy, non-nutritious partially hydrogenated oil". Further, he stated that the drink "contains virtually no milk and instead is mostly water, sugars, milk by-products and chemicals." However, Motts LLP, which made the drink during this time, said the drink contains "seven vitamins and minerals and no preservatives" and that they stood by their product.

Flavors

File:Yoohoo dblfdg.jpg, Yoo-hoo "Double Fudge" File:yoohoo-boxes.jpg, Yoo-hoo "Drink boxes" Yoo-hoo began introducing new flavors to its lineup in 1995, including chocolate-coconut, chocolate-mint, chocolate-banana, and chocolate-strawberry. Yoo-hoo's other flavors have included vanilla, strawberry, cookies & cream, chocolate peanut butter, and chocolate caramel. The Double Fudge, banana, and Island Coconut flavors were discontinued.

References

Bibliography

External links