Fun Facts About Snapple

Last Updated on June 23, 2023 by Jim Edwards

Many of us have snapped open a fruity, juicy bottle of Snapple at least once. Popular with both children and adults all over the world, Snapple had humble beginnings among three men just doing their day jobs. Now the company has changed hands with various businesses, had its recipe and logo altered, and has gone through a variety of spokespeople (remember Wendy the Snapple Lady?)

Ah yes, Snapple is definitely a nostalgic drink for many of us, so we thought we would recognize the fruity beverage with our list of 10 Fruity Facts About Snapple. Whether you prefer the fruit-tastic flavors like Grape, Snapple Apple, and Kiwi Strawberry, or you prefer the iced tea flavors, you will love our list.

Here you will learn all about Snapple, such as how it got started, and how it is still going strong over 40 years later. Learn about the celebrities, athletes, and radio personalities who have endorsed Snapple, as well as the many companies who have bought Snapple throughout the years. The company has certainly been through a lot, but it always seems to come out stronger in the end!

Oh, and we can finally talk about those “real facts” on the Snapple bottle caps (although the truth may disheartened you.) We say all of this with the utmost adoration for everyone’s favorite fruit drink. What started out in the New York City area with three humble men has grown into an international beverage company that consumers love to savor. Read on for more!

Fascinating Snapple Facts

1 Snapple was FALSELY Accused of Siding with the KKK

Seriously, the beverage company had to stave off rumors that their label and logo was a direct reference to the Ku Klux Klan. What it really was, according to Snapple, was a “K” for “kosher,” not “KKK.”

Others cited the “slave ships” in the background of the Snapple logo, which the company explained was a drawing of ships in reference to the Boston Tea Party.

Still, it was so much hooplah that Snapple ended up throwing that logo out altogether for something new and more streamlined. They even released a statement acknowledging the rumors and saying that they were totally false.

2 The Company Has Been Slammed for its Health Claims

Thanks to the Food and Drug Administration, many food and beverage companies can get away with putting a lot of different health and diet claims on their product labels. Among them is Snapple, who likes to boast their “all-natural” fruit and tea drinks to consumers around the world.

Yet, some people have taken offense at these claims of all-natural ingredients, slamming Snapple for using high fructose corn syrup. That was part of the reason why Snapple now uses sugar in lieu of that ingredient. Still, it begs the question of just how “natural” all of the sugar in a bottle of Snapple really is for the average person.

3 The Real Deal with Snapple’s Real Facts

As many people have suspected, most of the “real facts” on the Snapple bottle caps are not true at all. In fact, some scientists have even dedicated themselves to disproving facts like the anatomy of a mosquito and the genuine inventor of coat hangers (it was not Thomas Jefferson, as Snapple’s bottle caps claim.)

Even so, other “real facts” have ceased production, either because they were flat-out wrong or because society has changed, rendering the facts untrue now. The Snapple bottle cap facts continue to be one of the things that attract consumers of all ages to this fruity beverage.

4 Snapple’s Downslide

Yes, you can still find Snapple in many supermarkets today, but the beverage suffered some major losses after it was sold to The Quaker Oats Company in 1994. The company had also purchased Gatorade, which was seeing huge commercial success thanks to the company’s marketing tactics. So when The Quaker Oats Company bought Snapple, they tried to repeat the same schtick as the Gatorade brand.

Needless to say, it didn’t work out as planned. Their efforts to centralize distribution and eliminate certain Snapple flavors did not sit well with fans. Fortunately, Snapple made some recovery gains and didn’t completely lose out.

Related: Facts about Dr. Pepper

5 Wendy the Snapple Lady Wasn’t the Only Spokesperson

Most of us can recall Wendy the Snapple lady, who was played by Wendy Kaufman in the 1990s and early 2000s. Yet there were other celebrity endorsements for Snapple as well, among them Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. However, Wendy seemed to have a brighter history with Snapple then the other two guys.

Once Snapple no longer asked for support from Limbaugh and Stern, the latter radio host referred to the drink as “Crapple.” Totally rude! Wendy, on the other hand, was always happy to answer customer queries about the drink, even during her TV commercial appearances. We were sad to see her go.

6 Snapple Has Changed its Recipe A Lot

In the past decade or so, we have seen lots of consumers trying to eat and drink “cleaner.” This meant that a lot of food companies were ditching certain ingredients in the hopes of winning over these more health-conscious buyers.

In 2009, Snapple hopped on the bandwagon and got rid of high fructose corn syrup in its juices. Many other beverage products followed suit, but Snapple was one of the first companies to do so. Kudos to them!

Of course, eliminating artificial ingredients has always been high on their list of priorities, given Snapple started out in a health food store.

7 Apple Juice Didn’t Put Snapple on the Map

Yet their iced tea flavors did! Even today, many people prefer to pick up a bottle of Snapple iced tea, because it is the perfect combination of a fast and easy drink mixed with the soothing flavors of green and black tea.

Snapple started making the iced tea flavors in 1987, after three years of fiddling around with flavor combinations. They were really trying to create a tea drink that consumers didn’t have to brew and steep beforehand. This meant brewing the tea and then chilling it to get rid of that nasty acidic aftertaste. Well, it worked, so bravo!

8 They Know “Snapple” is a Funny Name

In fact, the name came from some nasty apple juice that the three founding men discovered in their warehouse. The apple juice was sitting in there for so long that it fermented, and thus the name “Snapple” was coined.

Why Snapple, you may ask? Well, with the fermented apple juice sitting in those glass bottles, enough pressure eventually built up to send the bottle caps soaring through the air in the warehouse. That fizzy “sss” sound was combined with the word “apple” to create “Snapple.”

Of course, there are many flavors of Snapple besides apple, but the name stuck because it was pretty nifty.

9 Snapple Was Bought Out – Many Times

So much for the Unadulterated Food Corporation that started Snapple in 1972. By 1994, the company had been bought by none other than the Quaker Oats Company, who held onto the business for 3 years.

After that, the Quaker Oats Company ended up selling it to The Wendy’s Company, where it stayed for 3 more years. Then it was off to Cadbury-Schweppes, who sold it to the Dr. Pepper company in 2008. So as of right now, the drink belongs to the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.

Pretty catchy, right? We know that the Dr. Pepper group is pretty big business; they even have a partnership product with Keurig.

10 An Unlikely Origin Story

The Snapple brand was the brainchild of an owner of a health food store, along with two of his window washers. They banded together in 1972 and came up with the Unadulterated Food Corporation, with the original intent of distributing natural fruit juices around the New York City area.

At the start, the three men were not very sure about how their new business venture would turn out. Actually, they refused to put too much hope in the endeavor, and continued working during the day while brainstorming ideas in their free time. Well, we’re certainly glad they didn’t give up.

Snapple – The Rise and Fall…And Rise Again

This video takes a look at how Snapple became so valuable in the first place, why it lost so much value, and how they’ve gained it back.

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Image Credit: “Snapple-LKW” by alice_c is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0