Fuze Beverage facts for kids
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Beverage |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Founder | Lance Collins |
| Headquarters | Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, United States |
| Products | Alternative beverages |
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Number of employees
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1500 (2020) |
| Parent | The Coca-Cola Company |
Fuze Beverage, usually called Fuze, makes different kinds of teas and fruit drinks that are not fizzy. These drinks often have extra vitamins added to them. In some countries like Greece and Turkey, it's known as Fuse. In the past, it was called different names in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
Fuze offers several types of drinks, including lines like Slenderize, Refresh, Tea, Defensify, and Vitalize. What makes Fuze drinks special is that they often include vitamins, amino acids, herbs, and different kinds of sweeteners. This style of drink is sometimes called a "new age" beverage in the drink industry.
Contents
The Story of Fuze
How Fuze Started
Fuze Beverage was started in 2000 by Lance Collins and Paula Grant. They began working on the company in the basement of Lance's home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. In 2001, Bruce Lewin helped the new company get money, and he became a big part of Fuze. Joe Rosamilia was also one of the first investors and directors.
Growing the Brand
The first Fuze drinks were launched in Northern California in 2001. They came in fruit-themed bottles with three flavors: mixed berry, banana colada, and cranberry raspberry. In 2002, two more flavors, peach mango and tropical punch, were added. That same year, the company grew to 30 employees and moved out of Collins' basement.
Fuze continued to grow quickly, adding new flavors in 2004 and 2005. By 2005, you could find Fuze products in most big stores. By 2006, the company had sold more than 11 million cases of its drinks.
Joining The Coca-Cola Company
Fuze's fast growth caught the eye of The Coca-Cola Company. In February 2007, Coca-Cola bought Fuze Beverage for about $250 million. As part of this deal, Coke also got the rights to NOS Energy Drinks and WaterPlus. This was one of Coca-Cola's biggest purchases since it bought Odwalla Inc. in 2001.
This purchase was a smart move for Coca-Cola. It helped them offer more non-fizzy drinks and compete with other companies like PepsiCo, which had its SoBe line of fruit juice blends. It also showed that Coca-Cola was changing its strategy. Instead of always creating new products themselves, they started buying other successful drink companies. Since it began, Fuze had launched over 40 new products and different versions of its drinks.
After the purchase, Coca-Cola named Carl Sweat as the new president and general manager to lead Fuze as a separate business. Lance Collins, who founded Fuze, became the head of new ideas and plans for the company.
Fuze's Expansion with Coca-Cola
With Coca-Cola's huge system for getting drinks to stores, Fuze's sales more than doubled between 2007 and 2008. In 2009, Fuze made a deal to sell its drinks from soda fountains in over 22,000 Subway sandwich shops. Carl Sweat left Fuze in 2009 to work at Starbucks.
Understanding Fuze's Claims
Fuze drinks are often presented as healthy products. They have added vitamins, antioxidants, and electrolytes, which are generally good for your health. Fuze drinks are labeled as "Enhanced Real Fruit Beverage(s)" and contain a mix of concentrated fruit juices and fruit purees, along with other ingredients.
However, it's not always clear how much actual fruit juice is in each bottle. The product labels separate ingredients into "medicinal" and "non-medicinal" lists, and this information is also not on the Fuze website. It has been estimated that Fuze drinks contain between 1.0% and 5.0% real fruit content.
Fuze's Slenderize drinks have many flavors. It is suggested that these drinks might help with weight loss, either by helping people with sweet cravings or by being mixed into smoothies with fresh fruit and yogurt. However, there is no scientific proof to support these ideas. Also, there is no scientific evidence for earlier claims that Fuze products could help prevent certain illnesses like cancer, heart disease, colds, or infections.
Ingredients in Fuze Drinks
Some Fuze products, like Fuze Iced Tea, are sweetened with HFCS and sucralose. Sucralose is an artificial sweetener.
Fuze Iced Tea in Canada
In January 2025, Coca-Cola no longer had the right to make iced tea under the Nestea brand in many places. This happened because their agreements with Nestlé ended. Coca-Cola then made a new agreement with Keurig Dr Pepper Canada for the Canadian market. After this, Coca-Cola changed the Nestea brand in Canada to Fuze. This was possible because Coca-Cola still owned the recipes they used when they made Nestea drinks.
