When was gatorade launched

Gatorade was developed in at the University of Florida; its name is a reference to the Gators sports teams there. In that summer, more than two dozen freshman players were hospitalized due to the effects of practicing in the sweltering heat. Robert Cade, a kidney specialist at the University of Florida, led the group of four doctors credited with inventing Gatorade.

Drawing on research into rehydration, the team developed an electrolyte-carbohydrate solution, a mix of salts and sugars designed to provide the athletes with energy and necessary chemicals for physical and mental performance. Plain water could not move through the body quickly enough, nor restore its chemistry. By replacing minerals lost in sweat, the players were able to outperform their exhausted rivals in the second half of games.

The Gators won their first Orange Bowl in In the same year the second Gatorade flavor, appropriately enough, orange, was introduced.

Gatorade was soon adopted by other football and basketball teams. A New Jersey doctor named Gerald Balakian was plying the Rutgers team with his own "Sportade"; it failed, however, to attain the same level of success and legend.

The doctors who invented the brew realized its sales potential but tired of their initial attempts to commercialize it. Canned food packer Stokely-Van Camp acquired U.

The doctors agreed to be compensated with royalties through the Gatorade Trust, which included a few other supporters, such as internist Eugene Tubbs and nephrologist Kent Bradley, who had transferred to the University of Indiana and was responsible for making the initial connection with Stokely-Van Camp. Stokely was quick to sign up Gatorade as the official sports drink of the National Football League in Distinctive orange and white coolers and green waxed paper cups, all branded with the Gatorade logo, took up a highly visible presence on the sidelines.

The formula was tweaked by one of Stokely's chemists to make the briny brew more palatable. After one of its ingredients, the artificial sweetener cyclamate, was banned in because of a link to cancer, Stokely quietly had the drink reformulated to replace it with more fructose, a natural sugar found in fruit.

A number of other flavors were developed but set aside in favor of the original lemon-lime and the second flavor, orange. The company also toyed with dozens of other names before opting to preserve the brand recognition Gatorade had already attained. Gatorade was marketed originally to sports teams and sold in ounce metal cans. When it turned out that the salts in the drink made these cans leak, it was put into the ounce glass bottles that would be the standard for 25 years.

But, writes Rovell, the teams soon convinced Stokely to produce a powdered concentrate so that they could mix it themselves in safer, nonglass containers on the field. Stoked by profiles in leading regional and national sports publications, Stokely's own ads trumpeted the drink as "Gatorade, The Big Thirst Quencher for Active People! Royal Crown Cola licensed a carbonated version of Gatorade but pulled the plug in the early s. But targeting the right taste, consumers make it a challenging recipe.

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Alejandro de Quesada, went to Gators coach Ray Graves. They asked to study his team as the football season began. Graves said yes, with one condition. Only the freshman team could be part of the research. The doctors promptly agreed and collected players' sweat by squeezing it out of their used jerseys. They found water loss was staggering for the two-hour practice — 8.

Down in a basement lab one evening, the doctors mixed up a solution to replicate sweat and then poured it into cups. They clicked their cups in a toast having no idea what they had just created and took a swig, Cade wrote. The doctors who were standing next to a lab sink quickly spit theirs out.

The doctors tinkered with the formula, adding lemon, orange and a non-nutritive sweetener. And, at last, Gatorade was drinkable. Not tasty, but drinkable. Soon after the doctors introduced their drink to the team, the Gators began winning. The varsity team started consuming Gatorade, too, and it began to defeat heavily favored teams in intense heat.

The following season, the Gators went and won the Orange Bowl for the first time in the school's history, beating Georgia Tech Tech coach Bobby Dodd told reporters after the game that his team lost because, "We didn't have Gatorade.

Deeply concerned, Graves asked Cade for enough Gatorade to keep all players supplied during both practice and games. Over the next five years, only one player. Turns out, he had not drunk any Gatorade. The Gators rolled to an record in , earning a reputation as a second-half team, and after a season-ending victory over the University of Miami a reporter for the Miami Herald scored an interview with Graves where the coach talked about the beneficial effects of Gatorade.

By that fall, Stokely-Van Camp had secured rights from Cade and his fellow inventors to begin marketing Gatorade nationwide. Soon, Stokely-Van Camp was selling hundreds of thousands of gallons of Gatorade annually and interest in ownership rights grew. The next few years were marked by a series of legal disputes that were ultimately settled in so that both the University of Florida and the original inventors — organized as the Gatorade Trust — received royalties.

In , the Quaker Oats Co. Pepsico purchased Quaker Oats in , a move beverage industry analysts predict will eventually lead to an even greater share of the market for Gatorade.