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The History Of Kool-Aid

The backstory of a childhood favorite drink

By: Fares Musa, Journalist

Kool-Aid’s Backstory

Kool-Aid started as a liquid concentrate called fruit smack and has worked its way up to becoming the popular drink we all know and love today. Kool-Aid in 2022, has made a total of 26.485 Billion (USD) and does not look like it’s slowing down in production and popularity. Kool-Aid is owned by a father company, Heinz which also sells Heinz ketchup and other products like the company’s own mustard, and other food-based items you can find at your local grocery store. however, everything isn’t sunshine and rainbows, as for the creator of Heinz,(Henry J. Heinz himself) his first company went bankrupt quickly and in 1875 he decided to create the Heinz company that we all know today. The Heinz company, the father company to Kool-Aid has a market size of 50.69 Billion dollars and it is the 317th most valuable company in the world. Henry J. Heinz (the founder of Heinz Co) was born on October 11th, 1844 and died on May 14th, 1919 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Kool aid was created by a man named Edwin Perkins, which his Kool aid company started out as a Jell-O company in his garage and then he expanded to juices and as the name Kool aid got more popular, he kept the juice but removed the Jell-O choice in his company, ultimately becoming a juice oriented company. Edwin lived from January of 1889 to July of 1961.

Ingredients (regular cherry flavor):

Citric acid, Maltodextrin, Salt, Natural flavor, Calcium Phosphate, Less than 2% Ascorbic Acid(Vitamin C), Artificial flavor, Calcium phosphate, Artificial Color, Red 40 BHT(keeps it’s freshness)

The future of Kool-Aid:

Kool aid’s future seems bright, but it looks like Kool-Aid is slowly losing popularity and in the stock market it is dropping day by day and who knows, maybe in like 20 years Kool-`aid might just be no more than another overpriced drink selling company.