So Long, Canned Juice: Minute Maid Is Saying Goodbye To Its Retro Roots

If you're of a certain age, then you may remember cracking open a cardboard can of frozen juice concentrate and holding it over a pitcher. You'd wait for that icy log of goodness to make a slow "shhhlllleeeeerpnk" sound as it fell inside before pouring water over it and stirring. Pretty soon, that experience will be long gone, as Coca-Cola has announced that it's discontinuing its Minute Maid line of canned frozen concentrates, according to Good Housekeeping. To be fair, the company's reasoning of "shifting consumer preferences" seems to indicate that no one was experiencing it anyway, as sales of these products were low.

Canned frozen juice has been around since 1946, when the Vacuum Foods Corporation first shipped a product the company called Minute Maid. We have federal funding and the Florida Department of Citrus to thank for the National Research Corporation's studies that developed the concentrate. It did so as a way to get juice to the troops during WWII, but the war ended before it was ready. The name, Minute Maid, reflects the ease of making juice out of the frozen concentrate and water.

Around the internet, the majority of reactions are people either feeling nostalgic or wondering what took so long. The few customers who still buy the frozen juice also pop in from time to time to voice their despair. In a GenX Reddit thread, there are multiple reactions of "No!" Plenty of other people, though, were surprised the product still existed. "They still make frozen juice concentrate? TIL [today I learned]," wrote one commenter.

Others waxed nostalgic. One person summed up the rise and fall of frozen Minute Maid with their own personal experience, writing, "I grew up with these. And I used to buy them in the 90s. I became health conscious after that and haven't bought one since then." It's true — drinking fruit juice isn't as healthy as eating the whole fruit since the fruit's dietary fiber is no longer bonded to its sugars.

People reminisced about other ways they used this frozen product. Some wrote about eating it straight from the can, with one calling it "The forbidden push pop." Others used it for marinades, and plenty mixed it with alcohol to make quick and easy mixed drinks for parties. In a Millennial Reddit thread, users wrote of mixing it with Everclear or using it as a shortcut to make frozen margaritas so much easier.