8 Signs Jones Soda Is Struggling

Back in 1995, Peter van Stolk and Victor John Penner created Jones Soda with a bold creative vision. The idea was that they would sell sodas emblazoned with random photographs taken by Penner. As customers also started submitting their own photographs, the soda's unique labels became a crowd-sourced phenomenon. Customers can still submit their own images for Jones Soda bottles to this day, even as other elements of the company have changed over the years.

Beyond its quirky packaging, Jones Soda is renowned for its weird and wonderful flavors. From Jones Soda's Barack Obama-themed orange cola to the brand's infamous turkey and gravy soda, the company's creativity has played a huge part in its success — and its struggles. Since the mid-2000s, Jones Soda has faced many challenges. While some of these are due to issues affecting the entire beverage industry — such as the ever-evolving preferences of customers and a volatile market — other challenges are much more unique. 

On the whole, it seems like this iconic beverage company is working its way through one heck of a rough patch. Let's break down some of the biggest signs that Jones Soda is struggling lately. 

A revolving door of executives is rarely a positive sign for any company. In late 2024, within the span of a few weeks, Jones Soda said farewell not only to its CEO, David Knight, but also to Joe Culp, its director of finance and interim chief financial officer. Knight — who was previously an executive at PepsiCo — only stepped into the role in 2023, taking over for Mark Murray, who had served in that position since 2020.

During the search for a permanent replacement, Paul Norman was named as Jones Soda's interim CEO in October 2024. He released an optimistic statement about the company's future, claiming that the brand is on the hunt for "a new permanent Chief Executive Officer who can execute on the many exciting initiatives we currently have underway," according to a Jones Soda press release. 

However, ever-changing leadership is nothing new for the company. In fact, between 2007 and 2016, the company saw the arrival and departure of five CEOs. For comparison, its biggest rival — The Coca-Cola Company — has had only 11 CEOs since its founding in 1886. While a change in leadership can be good for a company, it's near-impossible to read the executive turnover rate at Jones Soda as a positive sign for the company's outlook. 

When Jones Soda first launched, the fact that its offerings were so different from its rivals gave it an edge. While The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo could claim (and still claim) the lion's share of the soft drink market, these companies weren't bottling unique flavors like Strawberry Lime, Blue Bubblegum, and Pineapple Cream.

At one point, this novelty was enough to win over wallets. At the company's height in 2007, stock prices were around $30 per share. The more unusual the flavor, the more demand followed. When Jones Soda launched its Turkey & Gravy flavor in 2003, it sold out in a matter of hours. In 2007, the Jones Christmas Pack of sodas featured concoctions flavored like ham and pine trees. However, the thing about trends is that they come and go — and while a quirky flavor is fun for an experimental treat, the cold, hard truth is that it doesn't hold timeless value that persists, as seen when Diet Coke celebrated its 40th anniversary. 

Ultimately, novelty items can only get a brand so far. In 2012, Jennifer Cue — then serving as one of Jones Soda's many CEOs — told My Northwest that she felt like the company had veered too hard into novelty and candy products, and hadn't paid enough attention to what made it successful in the first place: a few widely liked varieties of high-quality soda. Over a decade later, however, novelty still seems like a priority for Jones Soda, with recent additions including Zombie Juice and S'mores Soda. 

It's been a long and bumpy road for Jones Soda, with the struggles of years past still casting a shadow over the company today. The beginning of its downfall is pinned on 2007, when analysts claim that Jones Soda tried to grow too fast, too soon. Not only did it launch too many products, but it also tried to expand into markets without securing enough distributors or support to do so.

One of these expansion plans included the launch of canned drinks to complement its bottled beverage lineup. Company founder Peter van Stolk, who was serving as CEO in 2007, thought that offering canned Jones Soda would help the company compete with the likes of The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. A great idea in theory, but not-so-great in practice. The shift to canned drinks led to huge debt for Jones Soda, which posted an $11.6 million loss in 2007, and soon afterward laid off 40% of its workforce.

Of course, the height of these struggles overlapped with The Great Recession. This took a toll on plenty of companies, as consumers dramatically switched up their food-shopping habits. However, while other businesses emerged from the financial crisis with a stronger grip on the global market — including The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo — Jones Soda did not. After share prices traded for well under $1 for a year straight, it was delisted from Nasdaq in 2012. 

If a company's share price plummets low enough to force its delisting, it's safe to assume that sales aren't looking too hot. Sadly, that is the case for Jones Soda. For well over a decade, the company has suffered from low sales. In fact, Jones Soda didn't experience a single profitable year between 2007 and 2015. Yikes.

Things haven't improved much in the years since. While Jones Soda bragged about an increase in revenue in 2020 — when, yet again, the market was hardly at its most favorable — it still lost nearly $3 million that year, after losing $2.78 million in 2019. The company hadn't bounced back much by 2024. In the third quarter of that year, Jones Soda reported a decrease in revenue and a loss of $2.6 million.

These numbers brought Jones Soda's losses for 2024 to $5.3 million — and that's before reporting its final-quarter results. The news followed yet another tough year for the company, during which it lost a U.S. discount retail customer while switching its Canadian distributor. Interim CEO Paul Norman also added that Jones Soda was experiencing higher operating costs than expected, claiming that the business had "taken immediate action to correct our trajectory" (via GlobeNewswire). All in all, these are not the most positive results on the heels of similarly disappointing numbers. 

It's no secret that Americans love soda; the U.S. is the top consumer of Coca-Cola in the entire world. However, tastes are changing. In recent years, soda consumption — or at least sugary soda consumption — has been on the decline. This may be a win for public health, but it is not-so-great news for businesses like Jones Soda. 

There's no singular explanation as to why soda sales are declining, but one factor is likely soaring soda prices — which have followed an increase in costs for operations and labor — and soda taxes might actually be working to reduce demand in some cities. In general, consumers are also more health-conscious, which is why prebiotic sodas such as Poppi and Olipop have managed to slide their way into the market.

To give Jones Soda credit, the company has already proven that it's proactively aware of this shift towards healthier soda. In 2024, the company unveiled Pop Jones — a line of prebiotic drinks that are considerably lower in sugar and higher in fiber than your average soda — in an effort to jump on a growing industry niche that's expected to grow considerably in the near future. Watch this space. 

Jones Soda has experimented with plenty of flavors and products over the years, but not all of these launches have been well-received. One of its most controversial efforts came in 2022 when the company launched Mary Jones, a new line of cannabis-infused soft drinks in classic Jones Soda flavors, containing either 5 milligrams or 10 milligrams of THC.

Mary Jones (which also sells gummies) has proven popular with customers. During the second quarter in 2024, sales of Mary Jones products surged to $1.2 million. However, the brand has also faced criticism for this product from health authorities. A warning issued in May 2024 by the California Department of Public Health stated that laboratory testing found bottles of Mary Jones were mislabeled, and violated state law by containing Delta-9 THC isolate, thus presenting a "risk of unintended cannabis intoxication, illness, or injury." 

This warning by California authorities specifically called out 12-ounce cans of Mary Jones' Orange & Cream, Berry Lemonade, Green Apple, and Root Beer sodas. Jones Soda later issued a statement to Newsweek in which it insisted that Mary Jones beverages were "created with licensed, experienced third-party industry partners following the protocol required by the state," and insisting that "there have been no safety issues with our products despite multiple millions of beverages sold." However, in October 2024 the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) still seized Mary Jones 5-milligram THC products during a statewide sweep that aimed to check if local establishments were following new regulations. 

In 2022, the same year when Mary Jones made its debut, Jones Soda made a big announcement: it had a buyer. The plan was for Simply Better Brands — a corporation with experience in CBD and THC products — to acquire the company for $98.9 million. "We see ‎joining forces with Jones as an incredible fit due to a common wellness mission, consumer cohort, ‎and leadership approach," said Kathy Casey, the then-CEO of Simply Better Brands (via Food Business News). 

While this acquisition hinted at brighter prospects for Jones Soda, it didn't take long before the deal fell through. On June 7, 2022, Casey revealed that the two businesses had terminated the sale. While Jones Soda management expressed disappointment about the failed transaction, then-CEO Mark Murray stated that he was optimistic that the beverage company would find more successful opportunities in the future. This hasn't been the case so far, but we wouldn't rule anything out just yet. 

Sponsorships can be hugely beneficial for brands like Jones Soda. That's why the loss of not one but two major partnerships in 2010 was so significant. In summer of 2010, Jones Soda ended its partnership with the Seattle Seahawks after three years. Earlier that same year, Alaska Airlines dropped Jones Soda after just two years of serving its drinks in-flight, with the airline instead shifting back to Coca-Cola after a high number of passengers requested the latter company's products. Although the brand has signed several sponsorship deals in the years since — such as with mixed martial artist Julianna Peña and Street League Skateboarding — these arguably dim in comparison to the scale of its former partnerships.

Jones Soda has also struggled with maintaining stockists over the years. This is another problem for the company dating back to 2007, the year when Starbucks decided to stop selling bottles of its soda in order to make more room for its own food products. While there are six stockists listed on the company's website as of early 2025 — including the likes of Walmart and Kroger — some customers have taken to social media to complain about how hard it is to find their favorite Jones Soda products in their local area in recent years.