Staying in Business: SodaStream’s Story

Someone has well said that the two most important rules of business are: 1) Stay in business; and, 2) Don’t forget rule number one. If your business fails, you cannot serve your customers. Obviously, we can learn lessons about staying in business from those who have done it.

SodaStream was started in 1903. It was a carbonation system invented by Giles Gilby that made standard water into fizzy water and was originally sold to the upper classes. Different flavours were introduced in the 1920s. Cherry ciderette and sarsaparilla were two of these. In the 1970s and 80s it enjoyed vast success, becoming a big hit in countries such as the UK, Germany and Australia.

The company underwent numerous changes in ownership, becoming, at one point, part of the Cadbury Schweppes empire. 1998 saw the company change hands for the final time when purchased by Soda Club, at that time Israel’s biggest supplier of SodaStream. SodaStream remained the name of the brand after Soda Club’s unsuccessful bid to change the brand to Soda-Club.

More recently Soda Club sought to reinvigorate the SodaStream brand. SodaStream was relaunched along with a new machine and many more new flavours, concentrating on being a healthy alternative to fizzy, sugar-rich drinks such as Coca Cola and Pepsi, and focused on health and diet issues so prevalent in this day and age.

Essentially, the SodaStream product is a home carbonation kit, which allows you to change water into sparkling water, as well as allowing you to add low-calorie flavours such as cola and orange. A large assortment of calorie-free flavours to flavour sparkling water to great taste is sold at allfreightfree.com.

The SodaStream machine is employed to force co2 into a water-filled bottle suitable for pressurising. The water is turned into sparkling (carbonated) water by the co2. This process (dissolving co2) is referred to as carbonation. The carbonated water can then be drunk on its own as sparkling water, or mixed with flavours to create tasty, healthy treats. Once the co2 canisters have been used up they can be sent back to Soda-Club who recycle the canisters by refilling them with co2 then sending them back out.

As far as the actual health and diet benefits gained from drinking SodaStream, it is claimed that all their flavours are completely sugar-free and contain a maximum of 2 calories per 100ml; this is, assuredly, good news for any parent concerned about a child’s diet.

The SodaStream machine adds only co2 to the water, meaning it does not have the added sugar that some bottled sparkling water contains, so there is no significant difference between it and normal water.

SodaStream have made much of their environmental and health credentials; they say that every one litre bottle of SodaStream made saves three aluminum cans. The result is that over 3 years, a family of four could slash their soft-drink-related packaging usage by over 90%. This is a popular claim, one that in this environmentally conscious age will stand them in good stead. Obviously, Sodastream has developed into a viable alternative to the big players in the soft drink world.

This year, and every year, thousands of new businesses will be born, and thousands of others will be buried. By analyzing a business like SodaStream we can identify qualities and strategies that might help our own businesses survive.