Jones Soda

Jones Soda

Jones Soda Co. is a beverage company based in Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington. It bottles and distributes soft drinks, non-carbonated beverages, energy drinks, and candy. Jones Soda is a carbonated soft drink that has many unusual flavors that are not offered by other soft drink makers.

Founded by Peter van Stolk in 1986, Jones Soda Co. started off as a beverage distributor in Western Canada in the late 1980s. As the company grew, they gained significant knowledge of the beverage industry and decided to get into the market with alternative beverages as the Urban Juice & Soda Company. In 2000, the company officially changed its name to Jones Soda and moved from its headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia to Seattle, Washington.

Until 1995, the company was a distributor of other beverage lines such as AriZona Iced Tea and Thomas Kemper sodas in Western Canada. The Urban Juice and Soda Company changed its name to Jones Soda Co. on August 1, 2000, most likely hoping to benefit from the fact that over 85% of the total revenues came from the Jones Soda brand.

In November 2006, Jones Soda announced that the company would be transitioning to use pure cane sugar (in the form of an inverted syrup) instead of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in its products. This is unusual in the carbonated soft drink category compared to other national brands that most often use corn syrup. On January 22, 2007, Jones Pure Cane Soda was launched in 12 ounce cans. By April 2007, all of the company's products switched to cane sugar, except for its energy drinks, which changed that fall.

In March 2010, Jones Soda agreed to allow rival Reed's, Inc. to purchase the company at a steep discount, though later in the month Jones backed out of the deal. The company named former Talking Rain president William Meissner as President and CEO.