Freshies Food Corporation

Freshies started in Telluride, Colorado in 1994. A chef (Ian Gustin) and a bartender (Colin Wells) created a Bloody Mary Mix that became famous throughout the ski towns of Colorado. In 1995, the two began bottling the mix under the "Bridal Veil Bloody Mary Mix" label. Bridal Veil is the waterfall at the end of Telluride's box canyon; incidentally, the name "Freshies" originally referred to skiing fresh powder turns, but today represents the fresh ingredients in all of the products. Their product sold in liquor stores and specialty shops, and a company was born. In 1997, the pair decided to extend their line of non-alcoholic mixers using fresh ingredients and no artificial preservatives. They rented a production facility in Denver, changed the name and labels of their products to "Freshies", and rolled out 5 new flavors. The best seller, by far, was the Fresh Lime Margarita Mix. Gustin and Wells felt that the other mixers on the shelves were too syrupy-sweet, so they used fresh lime juice, lemon juice, and a splash of OJ to round out the flavors. They were committed to not using corn syrup in any of their margarita mixes, and today the taste profile of fresh squeezed juice and granulated sugar translates to the entire line. The cocktail mix category accounts for approximately $750 million per year, with over 50% of that consumed in the US. Margarita mix is the number one seller, with Bloody Mary a distant second. Sweet-n-Sour mix (Lemon Squeeze) is nearly equal to Bloody Mary sales. The Nouveau cocktails--Cosmo, Mojito, Appletini (by the way, any green Appletini mix isn't considered all natural, since there isn't a FDA approved natural green coloring for liquids) , etc.--are in the lowest percentage, but they are quickly gaining shelf prominence; there is also very little competition in those flavors. Freshies mixes fall into the following order of product popularity: Margarita - Fresh Lime, Bloody Mary - Original, Mojito, Lemon Squeeze Sweet -n- Sour, followed by all other flavors. The newest Freshies flavors were rolled out in September 2006. Tangerita, Pomegranate Mojito, and Cosmopolitan have been well received and quickly gaining shelf space.