SodaStream: История израильской компании по производству газированной воды

Israel based manufacturing company

SodaStream International Ltd. is an Israel based manufacturing company best known as the maker of the consumer home carbonation product of the same name. The company's soda machines, in the style of soda siphons, add carbon dioxide to water from a pressurized cylinder to create carbonated water for drinking. It also sells more than 100 types of concentrated syrups and flavourings that are used in the process of making carbonated drinks. In 2018, SodaStream distributed its products to 80,000 individual retail stores across 45 countries. The company was founded in 1903 in England. After it merged with Soda Club in 1998, it was relaunched with an emphasis on healthier drinks, and went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in November 2010. SodaStream is headquartered in Kfar Saba, Israel, and has 13 production plants. In August 2018, the company was acquired by PepsiCo for US$3.2 billion. PepsiCo was attracted to the company due to its technological innovations and a desire to move into providing more healthy products; SodaStream has since launched a variety of PepsiCo flavours into their range. Until 2015, the company's principal manufacturing facility was located in Mishor Adumim, an industrial park within the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim in the West Bank, which generated controversy and a boycott campaign.

The SodaStream Sparkling Water Maker is a device that forces carbon dioxide (CO2) gas (stored under pressure in a cylinder) into water, making it sparkling (fizzy). The product includes a machine, a carbon dioxide cylinder, and one or more reusable beverage bottles. Varieties of concentrated syrups are available, to create regular or diet soft drinks by adding a small amount of concentrate to the bottle after carbonation. Different flavours are created by adding fruit flavoured concentrates. During its heyday, several famous brands were available in SodaStream concentrate form including Tizer, Fanta, Sunkist and Irn Bru. SodaStream and Kraft Foods entered into a partnership in January 2012 involving the use of the Crystal Light and Country Time brand flavours with the SodaStream home carbonation system. That July, the two companies expanded their partnership to include the Kool Aid flavour line. In 2013, SodaStream partnered with Ocean Spray to market three Ocean Spray flavours for use with the SodaStream home soda maker. In February 2013, SodaStream and Samsung announced that Samsung refrigerators with built in SodaStream sparkling water dispensers would be available in the United States beginning in April. Excluding the purchase price of the machine, typical cost to the end user (2015, United States dollars) is 25 cents per litre of carbonated water generated plus another 50 cents per litre for the soda syrup.

The forerunner of the machine, the "apparatus for aerating liquids", was created in 1903 by Guy Hugh Gilbey of the London gin distillers W & A Gilbey Ltd.

In 1985, after various changes of ownership, SodaStream became a wholly owned subsidiary of Cadbury Schweppes, although it operated as an autonomous business within the group. In 2003, Soda Club closed the SodaStream factory in Peterborough, moving the company's gas cylinder refilling and refurbishment department to Germany. Under the ownership of Soda Club, the brand has been relaunched in many markets, with new machines and new flavours available in 41 countries. In 2012, SodaStream teamed with Yves Béhar to introduce SodaStream Source, a line of soda machines designed with a special emphasis on sustainability. Béhar's design earned SodaStream a Good Housekeeping Institute seal of approval in 2013.

SodaStream International Ltd. went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in November 2010. The stock offering was jointly led by J. P. Morgan Securities and Deutsche Bank Securities. At the time, the IPO was the eighth largest for an Israeli company on the NASDAQ and during the year 2010 one of the top performing IPOs generally. To celebrate SodaStream's listing on the NASDAQ, CEO Daniel Birnbaum was invited to ring the exchange's closing bell on 3 November 2010. By August 2011, SodaStream's market capitalisation had risen from $367 million to $1.46 billion. During 2012, the stock experienced aggressive growth, with earnings per share growing 57%. In June 2013, Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist incorrectly predicted a $2 billion Pepsi takeover of SodaStream, sending SODA stock higher before the rumours were promptly debunked by PepsiCo. Analysts had expected another 27% growth in 2013 with earnings projected to grow 30% over the next 5 years. 2013's actual net earnings were down relative to 2012 despite an increase in sales; in 2014, the company's stock dropped to its lowest value since 2012. Barclays PLC analyst David Kaplan cited US Secretary of State John Kerry's warnings about the economic effects of boycotts and the company's failure to clarify the reasons for missed earning targets as causes for the drop. In October 2014, SodaStream announced its revenue for 2014 was expected to decline to $562.7 million, a 9% decrease from the previous year, while a report by Zacks Equity Research stated that net income for 2014 is expected to be 42% lower than in 2013. Zacks Equity Research cited declining sales in the United States, where an increasing number of consumers are choosing "more natural, less caloric and water based beverages" as opposed to traditional carbonated soft drinks.

Some 20% of households in Sweden owned SodaStream machines as of 2010. In January 2011, the company marked the sale of its millionth soda maker in the country. Europe accounts for 45% of SodaStream's sales. Since May 2012, SodaStream has been sold in over 2,900 Walmart locations in the United States. In June, equity research firm Monness Crespi Hardt & Co. stated that SodaStream's machines were selling out at Walmart. SodaStream's U. S. sales grew from US$4.4 million in 2007 to $40 million in 2011. Despite record sales, profit margins are declining. SodaStream's estimated 2013 net income ($41.5 million on an annual revenue of $562 million in 2013, compared to 2012's $43.86 million of net income on $436.32 million of revenue) fell short of targets and investor expectations. Sodastream also sells its product at most Bed Bath & Beyond stores.

In its marketing, the company focuses on environmental attractiveness of using tap water and returnable gas cylinders. SodaStream has been involved in environmental projects, including waste reduction, beach cleanup and reforestation. In 2011, SodaStream partnered with the Israel Union for Environmental Defense to launch an initiative promoting waste reduction and an improvement in the quality of tap water. Also in 2011, SodaStream launched a campaign with Erin O'Connor to raise awareness to the effects of plastic bottle waste on the environment. As part of the company's support for Climate Week, in 2012 SodaStream donated £1,000 (equivalent to £1000.0 in 2012 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years in 2021) to a school in Crediton, Devon in the United Kingdom to fund an educational beach cleaning initiative. SodaStream partnered with Trees for the Future in 2012 to launch the Replant Our Planet initiative: for each home beverage carbonation system sold from its Rethink Your Soda product line, SodaStream committed to planting hundreds of thousands of trees in Brazil. SodaStream Italy and the Municipality of Venice partnered in 2012 to organize Join the Stream: fight the bottle, a cleanup initiative with its starting point at the Lido di Venezia. Actress Rosario Dawson launched the first annual Unbottle the World Day in New York City in July 2012. The campaign, initiated by SodaStream to raise awareness to the impact of cans and plastic bottles on the environment, calls on the United Nations to designate one day of the year a "Bottle Free Day".

In 2010, SodaStream launched an international campaign to raise awareness of bottle and can consumption. The campaign involves the display of 9 cubic metre cages in various countries, each containing 10,657 empty bottles and cans. Begun in Belgium, the Cage campaign has since visited 30 countries with the message that the waste produced by one family over the course of five years from beverage containers – 10,657 bottles and cans – can be replaced by a single SodaStream bottle. When a cage went on display in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2012, Coca Cola demanded that SodaStream remove its products from the cages and threatened to sue SodaStream. SodaStream responded by dismissing the threats and announcing that it would display the cage outside Coca Cola's headquarters in Atlanta. A 30 second television commercial promoting sustainability, showing soda bottles exploding each time a person makes a drink using a SodaStream machine, was banned in the United Kingdom in 2012. Clearcast, the organization that approves TV advertising in the UK, explained that they "thought it was a denigration of the bottled drinks market". The same ad, crafted by Alex Bogusky, ran in the United States, Sweden, Australia, and other countries. An appeal by SodaStream to reverse Clearcast's decision to censor the commercial was rejected. A similar advertisement, which featured a pair of Coca Cola and Pepsi deliverymen reacting to the exploding bottles, was expected to air during Super Bowl XLVII in February 2013, but was rejected by CBS for its direct references to Coke and Pepsi. The previous SodaStream ad was shown in its place. SodaStream CEO said "The banned ad was a win because of the quality as well as the quantity of the exposure we received". The company's 2020 advertising campaign featured Snoop Dogg in the United States and Priyanka, the first season winner of Canada's Drag Race, in Canada.

Since 2016, SodaStream has worked with influencer marketing in social media.

SodaStream has 13 production facilities worldwide. From 2016, SodaStream's principal manufacturing facility is in Idan HaNegev Industrial Park north of Beersheba, Israel. The plant provides employment for around 1,400 workers, many of them Negev Bedouins. The cornerstone for the plant was laid in 2011, it opened in 2015. An additional plant, which began operating in 2011 in Ashkelon, produces SodaStream syrups and flavours. Another plant operated in the Alon Tavor industrial zone near the Israeli city of Afula, between 2011 and 2015, but was closed once the Idan HaNegev facility was opened. In Europe, the company employs 250 people, in two main sites; at SodaStream's European commercial and logistics center, which is located in Rijen, Netherlands and at a manufacturing facility in Limburg an der Lahn, Germany. SodaStream's US headquarters is at Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

In July 2014, SodaStream fired 60 Palestinian workers after they had complained about not receiving sufficient food to break Ramadan fasts during night shifts. The workers were not allowed to bring their own food into the plant due to Jewish dietary restrictions being enforced. According to SodaStream the workers had called for a wildcat strike. According to the workers they were fired after filing a formal complaint. SodaStream claimed that the workers were given a hearing and that they were not denied severance pay. The move laid off 500 Palestinian workers, although 74 Palestinian workers moved with SodaStream when it relocated. However, the Israeli government initially refused to renew the Palestinians' work permits. SodaStream protested the government decision. Around a year later, the Israeli government renewed the working permits of the 74 Palestinian workers and they returned to SodaStream. Some news sources reported that SodaStream blamed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) for the closing of its plant. Mahmoud Nawajaa, the BDS coordinator in Ramallah, called the loss of Palestinian jobs at SodaStream "part of the price that should be paid in the process of ending the occupation".