Genesis Juice to be revived again.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

In the horror story of the organic juice industry, Eugene's Genesis Juice is the character that just won't stay dead.

Two months after Genesis stopped distributing its products to local health food stores - and two years after an earlier shutdown due to an E. coli scare at a rival juice company - Genesis has been revived by organic foods mainstay Toby's Family Foods.

Toby's, the maker of Toby's Tofu Pate and dressings, Wednesday announced its purchase of the juice company's equipment and rights to its name for an undisclosed price. A line of eight or nine Genesis Juice products is expected to be back in grocery stores and health food outlets by mid-October.

"We're going through all their equipment, making some repairs and figuring out how it's all going to fit into our production facility," Toby's President Jonah Alves said. "We're real excited about adding Genesis to our product mix."

Genesis, a former co-op that was founded in 1973, initially suspended production in February 2004, following pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to comply with new health rules by pasteurizing its products. The pasteurization rules were the result of an E. coli outbreak in 1996 that was traced to Odwalla, a California producer of nonpasteurized juice.

Odwalla complied with the new rules, but Genesis owners refused to subject its products to normal pasteurization procedures, maintaining that the intense heat would destroy vitamins and healthful enzymes in its raw juices.

Genesis reintroduced its products in 2005, after equipment was purchased for pasteurization in a pulsed electronic field that did not significantly raise the temperature of the juice.

Genesis co-owners Claudia Sepp and Dale Hart, who reopened the juice company two years ago with help from an unnamed majority investor, have not returned phone calls since juice production stopped abruptly in April.

But Alves said Wednesday that Genesis never quite recovered from its earlier shutdown.

"I think there were a number of things," he said. "Their sales didn't grow as fast as they anticipated, and their sales couldn't cover their overhead."

Alves - whose company was founded by his mother, Toby Alves, in 1978 - said he was approached about a year ago by the juice company's majority investor, who was seeking a partner to help keep Genesis afloat.

"At that time, we weren't ready," said Alves, whose own company had just moved into a new, 19,200-square-foot facility at 1160 Shelley St., in Springfield. "Then he came to us the day he decided to shut down (in April)."

"We didn't realize ... things were so dire," Alves said. "Unfortunately, we weren't able to continue the operation (without an interruption). But we felt it was a good brand - a brand I had grown up on."

The Genesis juices will be produced at Toby's Springfield facility, and will be pasteurized with equipment that uses hydrostatic pressure, rather than either heat or electronic pulses, to eliminate pathogens in foods.

Toby's will reintroduce the popular carrot and "green smoothie" juices, which could not tolerate the electronic pulse process that Genesis used previously. The product line will also include other longtime Genesis flavors, such as apple ginger and "Herbal Fruit Tonic."

"We have contacted many of the local and regional grocery stores, and many of them have shown interest in carrying the (Genesis) products again," Alves said. "Some of them are a little hesitant, because I guess this is the second or third time this has happened."

Hart and Sepp, the former minority owners of Genesis, will be brought aboard to manage the juice production at Toby's.

"Initially, it's going to be Dale and Claudia, and we'll use some of our in-house people who are working part-time," Alves said. "And then, hopefully, we'll be hiring some old Genesis people back."

Toby's (www.tobys familyfoods.com), which has annual sales of about $1.5 million, produces five flavors of tofu pate and three salad dressings. Its products are distributed to natural food markets in Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.