SodaStream

SodaStream is a manufacturer of Trinkwassersprudlern headquartered near Tel Aviv in Israel and 22 production sites worldwide.

History

The first Wassersprudler were manufactured in the UK in 1903. There, the devices first came into the restaurant business and in households of the upper classes used. The British company SodaStream brought at the beginning of the 1970s, for the first time a low-cost soda on the market. 1985 took over the Schweppes Group trademark and technology of Sodastream, the Wassersprudlergeschäft operation but rather hapless. The fault-prone technique prevented further expansion. The Englishman Peter Wiseburgh was at this time the representative of Soda Stream for Israel and the units sold by him so frustrated that he founded in 1991 Soda-Club and develop their own hot machine introduced. The following year he was already exporting to South Africa in 1993 in Switzerland, to Germany in 1994. In 1998, Wiseburghs company then SodaStream, 2009, the competing brand WasserMaxx.

After it had acquired in 1998 with the British competitors SodaStream the corresponding trademark rights to Soda-Club Austria and Switzerland in April 2010 in Germany, renamed in SodaStream. The brand name club soda is no longer used since that date, the companies have been renamed accordingly. Since 2010, SodaStream is listed on the Nasdaq.

Products and market position

SodaStream soda maker produces for domestic production of carbonated beverages. It offered models with glass or plastic bottles as well as with steel (capacity for 30 liters of water ) or aluminum cylinders (capacity for 60 liters of water ). When buying a bubbler the customer a CO2 cylinder is left for use. The product range continues to include a wide range of syrups in various flavors. In Trinkwassersprudlern SodaStream is the market leader in Germany and Austria. The market share in 2004 was 78 percent in Germany and 2010 in Austria 84 percent. Advertised among others, the environmental argument that many soda bottles could be saved by consuming the products of SodaStream. In February 2014 Samsung announced that the company would continue to offer refrigerators with built - SodaStream soda maker.

In another area of ​​activity, developed from 1999 to 2006 for 15 million dollars a refrigerator-sized water treatment plant for large customers such as hospitals and schools, which can make from contaminated water drinking water. Thus, up to 10,000 liters of drinking water per month can be prepared according to WHO standards. The units are to be produced by the Indian Blue Star Group in Pune.

SodaStream also manufactures fire extinguishers.

Locations

Soda, bottles and syrups are of the SodaStream SodaStream International Ltd. Group. produced, among others, in two Israeli sites and the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim in the occupied West Bank with 1,300 employees there.

In Germany the daughter SodaStream GmbH is located in Limburg an der Lahn. In addition to marketing activities and sales of syrup, CO2 cylinder for the European market there be refilled.

Controversies

Refilling the CO2 cylinder

At times, the company tried to secure or its licensees the exclusive right to refill the CO2 cylinder. The first attempt to relying on an alleged infringement of trademark rights failed first before the Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf and then before the Federal Court. In the second attempt, the Group changed its sales strategy and did not sell CO2 cylinder more, but they offered only for rent and explained that just as the owner would be entitled him to the right to refilling. Of competitors on the market brought spare cylinders were replaced by Soda-Club only against their own. Against this distribution system adopted the Bundeskartellamt because of a dominant position and a violation of the Act against Restraints of Competition on 9 February 2006 a prohibition decision. The OLG Dusseldorf pointed out in a study published on 14 March 2007 decision back an appeal against this. On 4 March 2008 the Supreme Court finally decided that the filling or the exchange of one's own CO2 cylinder must allow also by competitors. In addition, it must be pointed to the cylinder labels on this possibility.

Production in the West Bank

SodaStream manufactures its equipment, especially in an industrial area near the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim in the West Bank. 500 of the 1,300 employees of the factory there are Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank, 450 are Arab Israelis (including Palestinian Arabs with registered residence in East Jerusalem), and 350 Jewish Israelis. Among other things, of the non-governmental organizations Coalition of Women for Peace, Peace Now and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions SodaStream was sharply criticized by this factory. As part of its call for a boycott, the total are also directed against products from Israel, these groups therefore call for a boycott of SodaStream.

SodaStream fights against the boycott and declared that Jews and Palestinians could work together peacefully and equally in all respects in the production. Palestinian employees were paid under Israeli tariff, which is equivalent to four times the average wage of a Palestinian. Palestinian workers largely confirm the presentation of SodaStream and distance themselves from the calls for boycott, as they would the Palestinians who have to feed their families, not help.

In the course of hostilities against the SodaStream - advertising icon Scarlett Johansson these put their work due to " fundamental differences of opinion regarding the ' Boycott - Divestment -and- Sanctions' movement" in early 2014 down as ambassador for the non-governmental organization Oxfam, as Oxfam also the boycotts supported, as far as these relate to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Johansson Also selected was the backing of Palestinian employees of Sodastream.

SodaStream declared its manufactured in Israeli-occupied West Bank products as " Made in Israel ". EU directives stipulate, however, that in the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories manufactured goods as goods from Israel itself does not - can be imported duty free into the EU - in the 1967 borders. The European Court of Justice ruled on 25 February 2010 that the import of manufactured in the West Bank Soda-Club goods tariff is levied. In presented by the Hamburg Finance Court case, the company Brita had there declared bottles manufactured as Israeli products and thus want to import duty- free due to the MFN clause. For this reason, SodaStream is now producing some of its products in Alon Tavor in Galilee, but still supply parts from the factory in Maale Adumim must be used.

Commercial at the Super Bowl in 2013 and 2014

Again and again produced SodaStream commercials that attack the major cola manufacturers directly, because their bottles are harmful to the environment. However, so far it has not been able to let send it.

In the advertising window of the transfer of the 2013 Super Bowl Sodastream wanted to show a spot, are seen in the van of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. Each time you press the Sodabereiters shatter bottles of the two competitors. However, the television station CBS rejected this bad publicity against the two giants, and it had to be shown a spot with neutral lemonade bottles.

With the Super Bowl on February 2, 2014, a spot should be shown in the Scarlet Johansson "Sorry, Coke and Pepsi. " says. Also this sentence was rejected by Fox and was not allowed to be sent.