SodaStream

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SodaStream International Ltd.

logo
legal form Limited under Israeli law
ISIN IL0011213001
founding 1903
Seat Gilboa Street, Airport City at Ben Gurion Airport , IsraelIsraelIsrael 
Number of employees circa 1940
sales $ 543.4 million (2017)
Website www.sodastream.de

SodaStream is a manufacturer of water machines with headquarters in Tel Aviv in Israel and 22 production sites worldwide.

history

The first soda makers were made in Great Britain in 1903. There, the devices were initially used in restaurants and in upper class households. The British company SodaStream brought a cheap soda maker onto the market for the first time in the early 1970s. In 1985, the Schweppes Group took over the trademark rights and technology from Sodastream, but operated the soda maker business rather unsuccessfully. The failure-prone technology prevented further expansion. The Englishman Peter Wiseburgh was Soda Stream's representative for Israel at the time and was so frustrated with the devices he sold that he founded a soda club in 1991 and had his own soda machine developed. The following year he exported to South Africa, in 1993 to Switzerland, and in 1994 to Germany. In 1998 Wiseburgh took over SodaStream, in 2009 the competitor brand Wassermaxx.

Logo until October 2008

After it had already acquired the corresponding trademark rights with its British competitor SodaStream in 1998, Soda-Club was renamed SodaStream in April 2010 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The brand name Soda-Club has not been used since then, and the companies have also been renamed accordingly. SodaStream has been listed on the Nasdaq since 2010 .

On August 20, 2018, it was announced that the US company PepsiCo was taking over SodaStream for around 3.2 billion US dollars (around 2.8 billion euros). The takeover has now taken place. 1500 employees work in the factory. In 2019 it was announced that the plant would be expanded for approximately US $ 92 million and another 1,000 employees would be hired.

In October 2018, the company launched a large-scale campaign off the coast of the Honduran island of Roatán to fish plastic waste from the waters of the Caribbean . A marine vehicle called the Holy Turtle was initially used on a trial basis , the idea of ​​which is based on systems for containing oil spills. It consists of a floating vehicle about 305 meters long that is towed by two ships. The campaign aims to draw attention to a reduction in single-use plastics in favor of reusable and recycling.

Products and market position

Soda maker

SodaStream produces sparkling water makers for the domestic production of carbonated beverages. Models with glass or plastic bottles and with steel (capacity for 30 liters of water) or aluminum cylinders (capacity for 60 liters of water) are available. When buying a soda maker, the customer is given a CO 2 cylinder to use. The product range also includes a large selection of syrups in various flavors. SodaStream is the market leader for sparkling water in Germany and Austria. The market share in Germany was 78 percent in 2004 and 84 percent in Austria in 2010. Among other things, it is advertised with the environmental argument that many lemonade bottles can be saved by consuming SodaStream products. In February 2014, Samsung announced that it would offer refrigerators with a built-in SodaStream soda maker.

In another business area, from 1999 to 2006 the company developed a refrigerator-sized water treatment system for major customers such as hospitals and schools that can turn contaminated water into drinking water for 15 million US dollars. In accordance with WHO standards, this means that up to 10,000 liters of drinking water can be treated per month. The devices are to be produced by the Indian Blue Star Group in Pune .

The company also manufactures fire extinguishers.

Locations

SodaStream International Ltd. supplies soda makers, bottles and syrups . among others manufactured in two Israeli locations. The site in the Israeli settlement of Maʿale Adummim in the West Bank was closed in 2015.

In Germany, the subsidiary SodaStream GmbH is based in Frankfurt am Main . Administration and production (filling the CO 2 cylinders for the European market) are located in Limburg an der Lahn .

Controversy

Refilling the CO 2 cylinder

At times the company tried to secure for itself or its licensees in Germany the exclusive right to refill the CO 2 cylinders. The first attempt to do so, citing an alleged infringement of trademark rights, initially failed before the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and then before the Federal Court of Justice . In the second attempt, the group changed its sales concept and no longer sold CO 2 cylinders, but only offered them for rent and declared that only he as the owner had the right to refill them. Replacement cylinders brought onto the market by competitors were only exchanged by Soda-Club for their own. On February 9, 2006 , the Federal Cartel Office issued a prohibition order against this distribution system due to the exploitation of a dominant market position and violation of the law against restraints of competition . In a decision published on March 14, 2007, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court rejected a legal complaint against him. On March 4, 2008, the Federal Court of Justice finally decided that the company must also allow competitors to fill or exchange its own CO 2 cylinders. This possibility must also be indicated on the cylinder labels. In the meantime, some retailers are relying on compatible CO 2 cylinders from other brands, which can be refilled at a lower price.

Production in the West Bank

SodaStream produced some of its devices in an industrial park near the Israeli settlement of Maʿale Adummim in the West Bank. 500 of the 1,300 employees at the factory there were Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank, 450 are Arab Israelis (including Palestinian Arabs who are registered in East Jerusalem) and 350 are Jewish Israelis. SodaStream was sharply criticized for this production facility by the non-governmental organizations Coalition of Women for Peace , Schalom Achschaw and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). As part of their calls for a boycott, which are also directed against products from Israel as a whole, these groups therefore call for a boycott of SodaStream.

SodaStream had declared that Jews and Palestinians would work together peacefully and on an equal footing in all respects in the production facilities. Palestinian workers are paid according to the Israeli tariff, which is four times the average Palestinian wage. Palestinian workers largely endorse SodaStream's account and demarcated the calls for boycott, as they would not help the Palestinians who have to feed their families.

In the wake of hostility against the SodaStream advertising icon Scarlett Johansson , the latter resigned as ambassador for the non-governmental organization Oxfam because of "fundamental differences of opinion regarding the 'Boycott Divestment and Sanctions' movement" at the beginning of 2014, as Oxfam also supports the calls for boycotts as far as these relate to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Johansson also received support from SodaStream's Palestinian employees.

SodaStream declared its products manufactured in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as "Made in Israel". However, EU directives stipulate that goods manufactured in the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories cannot be imported into the EU duty-free like goods from Israel itself - within the 1967 borders. The European Court of Justice decided on 25 February 2010 that the import of the West Bank made club soda goods to be charged customs. In the case presented by the Hamburg finance court , the Brita company had declared bottles manufactured there as Israeli products and wanted to import them duty - free due to the most - favored nation principle . The final assembly, which is decisive for the label of origin, now takes place in Alon Tavor in Galilee , but Sodastream announced that it intends to keep the location at Maʿale Adummim even if it is ultimately under the control of a Palestinian state, which is then also happy to pay taxes. In the summer of 2014, a total of 500 Palestinian employees were laid off because parts of the production had been relocated to Lehawim . In August 2014, SodaStream said it was considering closing the West Bank factory "for purely financial reasons".

After regular BDS protests outside the London branch of the retail chain John Lewis Partnership , the company announced that it would stop selling SodaStream products due to lower sales. After two years of weekly protests by the BDS movement, at the end of June 2014 the Israeli-owned “EcoStream” store in Brighton , which sells SodaStream products, was closed.

In July 2014, Palestinian workers asked the company that the servings provided by the employer should be larger, as they would not be enough to break the fast during Ramadan . In the course of the conflict, 60 employees were laid off without notice.

In 2015 the plant was relocated to Rahat in the Negev . Company boss Birnbaum had admitted that the factory was a "thorn in the side" of the company. In addition, savings of around 7 million euros should be achieved.

Commercial at the Super Bowls

Time and again, SodaStream produces commercials that attack the big cola manufacturers directly because their bottles are environmentally harmful. So far, however, it has not been possible to have these sent.

In the advertising window of the Super Bowl 2013 broadcast , Sodastream also wanted to show Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola delivery vans in its spot . Each time the soda maker is pressed, the two competitors' bottles burst. The television station CBS rejected this negative advertising against the two giants, however, and a spot with neutral lemonade bottles had to be shown.

During the Super Bowl broadcast in 2014 , a spot was to be shown in which Scarlett Johansson said "Sorry, Coke and Pepsi." This sentence was rejected by the broadcasting station Fox and was not sent.

"Shame or Glory"

The “Shame or Glory” campaign with Game of Thrones star Thor Björnsson received over 50 million clicks. The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) asked SodaStream to stop the campaign, claiming that the spot contained "false, misleading and derogatory statements about bottled water". Five more injunctions followed. In addition to Nestlé Waters, the Coca-Cola group and Danone (Evian) also directly or indirectly opposed the campaign. The managing director of Sodastream Germany Ferdinand Barckhahn then criticized that the mighty bottle lobby was defending itself "again with unfair means against environmental protection". Sodastream did not issue a cease and desist declaration . Finally, the 2017 ad campaign fell into disrepute for its use of a single word. Björnsson closes his speech with the words “fuck plastic bottles”. Because of the word "fuck" the limit of what is permissible was exceeded.

Web links

Commons : SodaStream  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b About SodaStream ( Memento of the original from January 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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.sodastream.com
  2. ↑ Address according to company website
  3. ↑ Total number of employees , accessed on July 9, 2019.
  4. ^ Sodastream , statista. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  5. ↑ Advertise & Sell : Soda Club is now called Soda Stream , April 12, 2010
  6. ↑ Sodastream wants to continue raising the mood against PET bottles , Handelsblatt, February 27, 2019. Accessed on July 9, 2019.
  7. ^ Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  8. ↑ SodaStream fishes plastic from the Caribbean In: Israelnetz.de , October 17, 2018, accessed on October 20, 2018.
  9. ^ Ralf Balke: Sparkling business. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . August 31, 2006.
  10. ↑ http://www.wirtschaftsblatt.at/home/oesterreich/unternehmen/niederoesterreich/415297
  11. ↑ Fewer bottles. More environmental protection. ( Memento of the original from September 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) 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. , SodaStream @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sodastream.at
  12. ↑ What's On Tap for SodaStream International Ltd.?
  13. ↑ [1] name = "handelsblatt.com"
  14. ^ Soda Stream opposes the banishment of Palestinians , Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 1, 2016
  15. ↑ SodaStream goes Frankfurt: soda maker moves into new German headquarters in the Main metropolis. In: Sodastream. Retrieved May 28, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Soda-Club auf habenzu-wem.de , accessed on January 31, 2014
  17. ↑ AZ .: 20 U 107/01
  18. ↑ AZ .: I ZR 44/02
  19. ↑ Gesch.Z .: B3-39 / 03); Decision of the Federal Cartel Office ( Memento of the original dated February 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 269 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundeskartellamt.de
  20. ↑ AZ .: XI Kart 5/06 (X)
  21. ↑ AZ .: KVR 21/07 - Soda-Club II
  22. ↑ juris.bundesgerichtshof.de
  23. ↑ Soda club soda devices must allow external filling - faz.net
  24. ↑ Maurizio Minetti: 5 francs cheaper than the original: Migros sells alternative cylinders for Sodastream soda makers. In: luzernerzeitung.ch . January 11, 2020, accessed January 11, 2020 .
  25. ^ SodaStream Boycott: At West Bank Factory, Palestinian Workers Reveal What They Think About Their Employer , International Business Times , February 3, 2014
  26. ^ Sodastream setting up plant within green line . In: Haaretz . Retrieved July 15, 2012. 
  27. ^ Sodastream (The Soda Club Group) . Archived from the original on June 21, 2012. 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. Retrieved July 15, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.whoprofits.org
  28. ^ Boycott List - Products from the Settlements . Archived from the original on February 9, 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. Retrieved July 15, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / peacenow.org.il
  29. ↑ Ashley Feinberg: Why These People Want You to Boycott SodaStream . In: Gizmodo January 24, 2014.
  30. ^ SodaStream Boycott: At West Bank Factory, Palestinian Workers Reveal What They Think About Their Employer , International Business Times (February 3, 2014)
  31. ↑ SodaStream is wrong target for Oxfam's Israel boycott ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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. , Al-Monitor (February 4, 2014) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.al-monitor.com
  32. ↑ Elhanan Miller: At SodaStream, Palestinians hope their bubble won't burst . In: The Times of Israel, February 3, 2014.
  33. ^ Scarlett Johansson stepping down as Oxfam ambassador . In: Haaretz , January 30, 2014. Retrieved January 30, 2014.
  34. ^ Palestinian workers back Scarlett Johansson's opposition to SodaStream boycott
  35. ↑ Dispute over settlement areas. Soda Club verdict exposes Israel in Der Spiegel , February 25, 2010.
  36. ↑ Israel's SodaStream: under fire over West Bank factory , The Daily Star - Lebanon News, January 30, 2014
  37. ↑ Ora Coren: SodaStream: Israel isn't providing promised aid for plant inside Green Line , Haaretz from February 3, 2014
  38. ↑ Ora Coren: SodaStream to decide whether to shut down controversial West Bank plant. In: Haaretz , August 27, 2014.
  39. ↑ Sandy Rashty: SodaStream shop closes in Brighton after boycott row , Jewish Chronicle , July 3, 2014; BDS bursts SodaStream's UK bubble. In: Haaretz , July 3, 2014.
  40. ↑ Palestinians fired from SodaStream in Ramadan dispute did not receive hearings , Ha-Aretz on July 24, 2014
  41. ^ Israeli company closes factory in settlement , Handelsblatt on October 29, 2014
  42. ↑ The SodaStream Ad You Didn't See During The Super Bowl , Fastcompany on February 4, 2013
  43. ^ "Sorry, Coke and Pepsi": Sodastream spot with Johansson excluded from Super Bowl , the standard on January 28, 2014
  44. ↑ Joachim Wille: War of the Bottles. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . December 2, 2016, accessed March 23, 2017 .
  45. ↑ Bottled water industry wins small victory against Sodastream over 'Game of Thrones' ad . campaign, May 3, 2017. Retrieved July 9, 2019.