Sunkist is sinkist (Sunkist)

Member Name: whatanoldbag

Product:	Sunkist
Date:	28/01/08 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: tastes good when ice cold; has at least some relationship with fruit

Disadvantages: full of sugar

Sunkist - to drink it is to be kissed by the sun...?

Actually I laughed the first time I bought one of these as I thought when I read it thinking that it was called sinkist.
I was on holiday in Cornwall at the time and did have visions of someone pouring it all over and licking it off (sorry I don't know why that came to mind; must have been the sunshine going to my head!). I did think that would be quite sinful, especially on a public beach, though I got worried even in my fantasy about how sticky it would get and how all the sand would stick and go all scratchy. Still it would be OK on a beach because you could just jump into the sea to get it off afterwards, I mused.

Having recovered from two traumas:
a) I am such an old bag I worry about practicalities even in a fantasy - how old am I getting LOL?
b) it was actually called SUNkist, not sinkist
I then thought I'd better taste it.

Actually, if I may digress for a moment, looking at the packaging, which is suitably orangey and sunshiny to make you think of hot days on beaches, I reckon it could also say sink-ist and be a sort of mister-muscle-sink-unblocker- with extra orange (is that better or worse than Agent Orange?) for the Californian client/
Having bought an ice-cold can which you can cool your fingers down on I pulled the ring pull and got that familiar schlok sound as the air rushed in and the fizz began.

It is fizzy (very), orangey (quite), sweet (yup), and er, made from much actual fruit, (er, probably not that much).
My other half is a big fan of coca cola and has converted me to the pleasures of an ice cold can on a very hot day. I do think that orange drinks are, as a genre, fundamentally more refreshing, however, though if they are of an inferior quality, they have a nasty aspartame/saccharine aftertaste which ruins the whole experience.
This one is pretty good - personally I think Orangina is unbeatable, but this one does not taste too artificial or sickly , and there is a lingering hope if you are a weight or health conscious person that an orange drink is somehow not as bad for you are a cola one.

I am aware that that last comment contains about as much fact as my earlier beach daydream, but psychologically, it does sort of work for me.
I have taken a can of this on the beach and noticed that, if it not absolutely ice cold, it tastes a bit sickly and I certainly think it has enough sugar in it to meet my daily allowance just from the one can.

so in terms of a fizzy drink, it is quite a nice one, but not anything out of the ordinary.
But then I did a bit of research (penance perhaps for my sinful thoughts of earlier) and discovered that ethically speaking, this product is pretty cool.

Here's why:
Sunkist is a leading international citrus supplier, but it is not a plantation owner, it is a cooperative - a not-for-profit company. They have 6,000 members, all California and Arizona citrus growers, who have joined forces to become one of the largest marketing cooperatives in America, as well as being one of the largest marketing cooperative in the world's fruit and vegetable industry. It dates back to 1893, when the Southern California Fruit exchange was formed. As quickly as 1905, the organisation represented nearly half of all California's fruit growing farmers, and in 1914 they made their first product: marmalade.

By 1921 they were shipping their produce to London via the Panama canal, but it wasn't until 1977 that they produced the fizzy drink we now know as Sunkist - the Orange soda.
The really amazing thing is that the whole Californian orange industry started off in 1870 with three orange trees from Brazil, which were given by the state commissioner to a couple called Eliza and Luther Tibbets. One of those original trees is still in existence (you can visit it in a park near Palm and Magnolia Avenue in Riverside, California) and is now California's official landmark number 20. Surely it is only in the USA that landmarks would have numbers!

So Sunkist as a global brand actually sell citrus fruit. lots of it. How much of it is in each can of this fizzy drink I don't know, but at least this product has stable mates which are actual oranges, even if there is more water and sugar in this particular product than orange.

So Sunkist is a lot more than a fizzy drink:

1. its branded products are available in more than forty-five countries.
2. the co-operative has a turnover of $2.1 billion dollars a year.
3. approximately 600 products carry the Sunkist trademark worldwide.
4. About 350 billion Sunkist branded products have been sold - that's 7.2 billion products a year, more or less.


What I do think is that is the origins of this product lie in an orange-growers' co-operative, it is a shame that there isn't more natural orange and less sugar in this product.As a fizzy drink goes, it's a nice alternative to cola, but as a healthy option, it doesn't compute, and all those lovely Californian oranges, certainly do fit that bill. As shame there are not more of them in this product. So I think it is quite sinful actually, on your teeth and on your waistline -maybe the original fantasy was actually the least sinful thing to do with this product.


....also on Ciao...

Summary: Your dentist won't thank you if you drink it too often