Sprite (soft drink) Sprite (soft drink) Sprite is a colorless, caffeine-free, lemon and lime-flavored soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. It was first developed in West Germany in 1959 as Fanta Klare Zitrone (“Clear Lemon Fanta”) and was introduced in the United States under the current brand name Sprite in 1961 as a competitor to 7 Up. Bottles of Sprite are usually transparent green in color, with a green and yellow label, whereas cans are colored silver, green, and blue, and aluminum bottles have a solid lime green color. Sprite advertising often makes use of the portmanteau word "lymon", a combination of
Cuyamel Fruit Company data from 1927 shows that Cuyamel accounted for about 14% of the bananas imported and sold in the United States that year. In 1929, after the October crash of international financial markets, Zemurray sold Cuyamel to United Fruit in exchange for stock and retired. Black Tuesday sent Cuyamel shares into a tailspin, forcing the combination of the two companies (Vaccaro, known by 1929 as the Standard Fruit Company, remained independent). For his sale of the Cuyamel Fruit Company, Zemurray received 300,000 shares of United Fruit, with a market valuation of $31 million, which would be about $420 million today. With