Rama (brand name)

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Rama
Owner / user Upfield Holdings
Introductory year 1924
Products Margarine / spreadable fats
Markets Germany, Austria, Switzerland
Website www.rama.de

Rama is a brand of Upfield Holdings , under which mostly vegetable spreads and margarines have been offered in Germany, Austria and since 1954 (then as Planta ) also in Switzerland. The Unilever Group was the brand owner until 2018 . Under the name Rama Culinesse , Upfield Holdings also offers products based on vegetable fat suitable for frying .

The brand name Rama for "butter, margarine, edible fats, edible oils" was entered in the German trademark register on January 15, 1901.

Until 2007, Rama contained three vegetable oils, namely rapeseed oil , corn oil and sunflower oil . Then the recipe was changed. The previous margarine with a fat content of 80% became a spread fat with a fat content of 70%. A large part of the fat was replaced by the ethically highly controversial palm oil .

On July 2, 2018, the financial investor KKR took over the spreads division from Unilever and has been running it as Upfield Holdings since then .

Development and marketing

Enamel advertising sign still under the name "Rahma"

At the beginning of the 1920s, margarine was produced and advertised regionally in Germany . This is also the case with Deutsche Jurgenswerke AG . In 1924, Deutsche Jurgenswerke AG decided to replace this variety of its own brands with a common brand, Rahma . The name of the vegetable fat Rahma should evoke associations with the animal cream ; also with attributes like “butterfein” u. Ra (h) ma was advertised until, however, a German ordinance at the end of 1932 put an end to such attempts at leaning against it by forbidding any reference to milk, butter and other milk products in words and pictures in the labeling and advertising of margarine. As early as 1926, the “h” was removed from the brand name in order to avoid confusion with pure dairy products.

In the interwar period , Rahma and Rama published the periodic children's and young people's magazines "Rahma-Post" and "Rahma-Post" as a marketing measure.

After the interruption caused by the Second World War , Margarine-Union (the German Unilever subsidiary) initially only reintroduced the brand name Sanella . It was not until 1954 that the Rama brand, which was still quite well known to consumers from pre-war times, was launched as a more expensive, high-quality margarine brand with a lot of advertising. The packaging was designed by the Unilever advertising department after systematic consumer tests from gold-colored paper with motifs in the style of Delft tiles , and a young woman in traditional costume from four countries was used as the advertising figure , who gained wide recognition after just a few years and is closely associated with margarine by consumers was brought. The market launch was so successful that as early as 1962 Rama achieved a share of approx. 40% in the stagnating, since 1956 even declining German margarine market and Sanella was far behind with approx. 15%; the brands of other manufacturers, on the other hand, were comparatively meaningless. The “Rama girl” became a defining feature of the product's brand identity and, revised several times, was used for decades as the central motif of the brand's commercials. At the beginning of 2011, Unilever overhauled and standardized the appearance of some of its margarine brands (in addition to Rama also Planta and Blue Band), in the process abolished the "Rama girl" and replaced it with floral motifs. After the brand takeover by Upfield Holdings, this step was withdrawn and the Rama girl was reused in a revised form.

After the Second World War, the product range in particular was continuously expanded and the main target group of housewives was advertised with advertising slogans such as "Rama makes breakfast good" or the figurative association of the "Rama breakfast family".

In order to differentiate it from other products in the product line, the actual spread was given the nickname "Original", later the addition "- the classic". In 2008, the fat content of Rama Original was reduced from 80% to 70%. In 2017 the fat content was reduced to 60% and Rama - the classic can no longer be called margarine, but only three-quarter fat margarine.

ingredients

Since the recipe was changed in 2017, Rama has a total fat content of 60%.

Ingredients: vegetable oils and fats (rapeseed, palm), drinking water, faba bean protein, table salt (0.5%), emulsifiers (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, lecithins), preservatives (potassium sorbate), acidulants (citric acid), flavors, vitamins ( A, D, E), color (carotene).

In 2017, the fat content consisted of 36% rapeseed and 24% palm.

According to the European spreadable fat regulation, it is a three-quarter fat margarine (minimum 60, maximum 62%).

Rama contains palm oil . Unilever was accused of working with suppliers who did not operate sustainably and who used criminal practices, for example the Indonesian company Wilmar , which does not shy away from excesses of violence.

At about the same time as the article, Unilever announced that all palm oil would only be sourced from sustainable sources until 2013. Since 2010, the traceability and sustainability of the palm oil used in the D-A-CH region has been ensured in accordance with the standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil . In 2012 Unilever announced that this goal for European production according to the GreenPalm standard had already been achieved.

criticism

In 2008 the Stiftung Warentest examined the nutritional composition of common margarines in a study . Rama received the grade “Satisfactory” and, like other well-known branded products, performed surprisingly worse than some inexpensive private labels and discount margarines.

In April 2011, the news magazine Der Spiegel cited the product “Rama Irresistible!” As an example of hidden price increases in the food sector. The 400-gram cup “Rama Irresistible!” Costs just as much as the 100-gram cup of the standard Rama variety. Unilever replied to inquiries about the reasons for this fact: "There are two products with different recipes". "Rama Irresistible" offers a different taste experience and the price is "slightly higher".

Web links

Commons : Rama  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Langenscheidt (Ed.): Deutsches Markenlexikon . 1st edition. German Standards Editions, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-8349-0629-8 , pp. 850 .
  2. ↑ https://www.rama.ch/de-ch/ueber-rama/die-geschichte-von-rama
  3. ↑ Register information Register number: 47344 / Rama. DPMA , accessed on June 14, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Rama Original No more margarine. Stiftung Warentest , accessed on November 25, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Unilever to sell its Spreads business to KKR for € 6,825 bn
  6. ↑ a b c The Rama story. Unilever , accessed October 22, 2016 .
  7. ↑ a b Willi Bongard: The smile of Mrs. M. Portrait of a brand: Rama. In: The time . No. March 11 , 1962 ( online [accessed July 4, 2015]).
  8. ^ Ordinance of the Reich President on the Promotion of the Use of Domestic Animal Fats and Domestic Feed of December 23, 1932, RGBl. I p. 575 ( online ), in particular § 9 (1).
  9. ^ History 1924. (No longer available online.) In: www.gesundepflanzenkraft.de. Unilever, archived from the original on March 27, 2012 ; Retrieved January 6, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gesundepflanzenkraft.de
  10. ↑ The advertising newspapers of the margarine industry (Die Rama Post, Fips Lach-Zeitung for dear little children, Fips the cheerful post from little Coco, Rama in the blue band week, blue band week) .
  11. ↑ Achim Schaffrinna: Rama in a new look. In: Design Diary. April 7, 2011, accessed July 4, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Achim Schaffrinna: The Rama girl returns. In: Design Diary. May 22, 2019, accessed June 14, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Nutritional values ​​and ingredients. Manufacturer's website, accessed June 14, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Cheap water instead of valuable rapeseed oil at Rama. Consumer advice center Hamburg, September 28, 2017, accessed on June 14, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 2991/94 of the Council of December 5, 1994 with standards for spreadable fats.
  16. ↑ People are shot at for palm oil from Rama producer Unilever. Rainforest Rescue, August 17, 2011, accessed January 6, 2013 .
  17. ↑ Sustainable procurement. (No longer available online.) Unilever, archived from the original on September 29, 2013 ; Retrieved October 6, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.unilever.de
  18. ↑ Margarine - The best for your breakfast . In: Stiftung Warentest (Ed.): Test . No. 2 , 2008, p. 20–26 ( HTML [accessed October 6, 2013]).
  19. ↑ Consumer advocates warn against "sham packages". Spiegel online , 2011, accessed October 6, 2013 .