His soda was no mere imitator, Hatcher would claim time and again, and he would not be bullied out of business. To make matters worse, Claud Hatcher died in , leaving Nehi in the hands of its sales director, H.
What looked to be a disaster, though, turned out to be just the opportunity the company needed. Mott was a shrewd businessman.
In , Nehi came out with Royal Crown, and over the next several years its sales increased tenfold. The middle of the 20th century brought one win after another for Nehi.
With nationwide distribution and sales on the up and up, Nehi shoveled money into print and television ads featuring stars like Bing Crosby , Joan Crawford , Shirley Temple , and Lucille Ball. It was the first time a beverage company had ever done such a promotion. Whether or not the tests were rigged in some way is up for debate; what mattered was that people believed them.
Slowly, steadily, RC muscled its way into soda fountains and onto grocery store shelves. To stay top-of-mind with consumers, it continued to innovate. In , it became the first company to nationally distribute soda in aluminum cans. Shortly after, it began selling soda in ounce bottles as an alternative size for thirsty fans.
In , Nehi changed its name to match its bestselling product, becoming the Royal Crown Cola Company. But while Royal Crown had made significant progress, it would continue to trail Coke and Pepsi so long as it continued to sell a similar product. What it needed was something new. What it needed was a game changer. In , the founder of a sanitarium in Williamsburg, Brooklyn named Hyman Kirsch invented a sugar-free soda called No-Cal. Available in ginger ale and black cherry, No-Cal was made specifically for patients in Kirsch's sanitarium who were either diabetic or suffering from heart ailments.
Kirsch quickly discovered that his drink had a much wider appeal, and along with his son began making other flavors, like chocolate, root beer, and cherry. The two sold No-Cal to local stores and quickly built up a distribution network that extended throughout New York and the northeast.
He also continued marketing No-Cal mainly toward diabetic customers, further limiting his reach. In the mid '50s, it began secretly developing its own diet soft drink—one that would appeal not just to diabetics, but to an entire nation of increasingly calorie-conscious consumers. While other food and beverage companies continued to push everything sweet, salty, and delicious, RC recognized a budding demand for healthier choices.
After a few years RC came out with Diet Rite, a drink that the company believed would be the breakthrough it so desperately needed. Test markets had emphatically confirmed its appeal. One, in South Carolina, saw supermarket managers clamoring for the product. What could cause such a reaction? The key ingredient—the one Kirsch had first used in No-Cal—was an alternative sweetener called cyclamate that was 30 times sweeter than sugar.
First developed by a student at the University of Illinois in , it was initially sold as a tabletop sweetener. In , the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval, paving the way for its use as a mass-market ingredient. In a particularly shrewd bit of marketing, the company made sure to sell Diet Rite just like real cola: In the same slender bottles for a nickel each, or as a six pack. Consumers wanted something different, RC executives figured, but not too different.
When Diet Rite hit shelves in , it was a smashing success. Within a year and a half of its release, it had rocketed up to number four on the sales chart, behind Coke, Pepsi, and regular RC Cola.
America, it turned out, was ready for what had for years seemed oxymoronic: a healthy soda. The rest of the industry was in something close to a state of shock. Coke and Pepsi were caught completely off guard. Within a year, Coke would scramble to release TaB, which it also sweetened with cyclamate. Pepsi responded with Patio Cola, a diet soda aimed at women that also contained cyclamate, and which it would soon rebrand as Diet Pepsi. There were, predictably, numerous other fast followers to the market, including long-forgotten brands like LoLo, Coolo-Coolo, and Bubble-Up.
In , Coke came out with a citrus-flavored diet soda called Fresca. None of them, however, could catch Diet Rite, which continued to build market share for Royal Crown Cola. The company will be renamed Vision Beverage. It is moving away from its existing Royal Crown Bottling Corp. Royal Crown Bottling Corp. Company officials say shifting consumer habits are creating big changes within the beverage industry.
The new company will now shift its focus toward independent production and the expanding contract packaging market, producing beverages for brands that do not have in-house production and packaging capabilities. Vision Beverage plans to continue distribution of Red Bull and Fiji bottled water.
The company will also continue to produce and distribute the popular soft drink Ski in the Evansville market. We are a family-owned company in an evolving world of major players with sales in the billions, so there are incredible challenges every day to remain viable.
The company says employees will face changes as well. They say Operations will be streamlined, and the company intends to adjust its workforce to support these operations. We reached out to find out more details about the workforce changes, and we were sent the following information. The company is still working to determine what size staff it will need as the changes are implemented, so no final decisions have been made yet on an exact number of jobs that will be affected.
In addition to employees that are retained, many other workers will have an opportunity to go to work for KDP in their sales and operations depts. Skip to content. Follow Us. In , the company became the first to nationally distribute soft drinks in cans. Four years later, the company introduced the ounce bottle. Other RC innovations include the all-aluminum beverage can and Royal Crown Draft cola, a premium cola made with pure sugar cane. RC Cola received its name from the people who matter the most: its consumers.
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