Bionade

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Various flavours of Bionade
Various flavours of Bionade

Bionade is a trademark of Bionade GmbH for an organic fermented and carbonated beverage, which is made in Germany. It is manufactured in the Bavarian town Ostheim vor der Rhön by the Peter beer brewery now owned by Dieter Leipold, who is also the creator of Bionade.

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[edit] Product

Bionade was created in 1995 by Dieter Leipold. Leipold was the master brewer at Privatbrauerei Peter in Ostheim, a town in northern Bavaria with just 4,000 inhabitants, and a friend of the family that owned the brewery. He was worried about the future of the company, which was about to go bankrupt.[1][2] He got the idea of creating a nonalcoholic drink produced with the same principles and under the same purity laws used to brew beer:[3] not using corn syrup or other artificial additives and making it by fermentation. The drink would consist only of the natural ingredients malt, water, sugar, and fruit essences. For eight years, Leipold experimented spending €1.5 million of the brewery owner Peter Kowalsky's money. His lab was a bathroom. He isolated a strain of bacteria capable of converting the sugar that normally becomes alcohol into nonalcoholic gluconic acid, which he used to ferment the new drink.

Bionade's premise was that it tasted like soft drinks, but contained little sugar and no stabilizing or flavor-enhancing additives. It thus has the taste of a soft drink, but is significantly healthier. It also contains both calcium and magnesium, and is low in sodium and free of phosphorus.[3]

Leipold refuses to divulge the exact chemical process he used to do this. The gluconic acid also has the advantage that it allows him to reduce the amount of sugar, because it strengthens the sugar's taste. After fermentation, the natural flavors, elderberry, litchi, orange-ginger, and herb are added along with carbonation.[1][4]

[edit] History

Sales started in 1995. It started being sold in health resorts and fitness centers and was even picked up by Hamburg's largest beverage distributor Göttsche in 1998, but did not reach consumers beyond this.[2] In order to change this, Kowalski hired the marketing expert Wolfgang Blum in 1999. Blum devised a new marketing strategy for Bionade. A retro blue, white, and red logo was designed, the product was branded as a new trendy drink. Because the company could not afford advertising on television or in the print media, it went for an alternative means of reaching potential buyers: the sponsoring of sporting, cultural and kids' events all across Germany.[1]

By 2002-03, however, two million bottles of the drink were sold.[1] A wave of health awareness was sweeping Germany: for example, 75% of all Germans approved a ban on smoking in bars.[4] In 2004, Coca-Cola offered to buy the rights on the drink and the brand Bionade, the producer rejected the offer, citing its plans to expand internationally on its own.[5] Sales reached seven million in 2004, twenty million in 2005, seventy million in 2006, and 250 million are projected for the year 2007.[6]

Bionade also started being sold outside of Germany, by 2006 it reached Switzerland, Austria and the Benelux countries,[1] then it became available in Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland.[7] In 2007, Bionade started its first advertising campaign. It launched the campaign under the slogan "Bionade. Das offizielle Getränk einer besseren Welt" ("Bionade. The official beverage of a better world"). This was a reference to the protests against the 33rd G8 summit, which was taking place in Heiligendamm, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania at the time and the stereotype that anti-globalization activists always drink the beverage. The campaign encompassed billboards in fifteen German cities and radio commercials.[8]

[edit] Availability

This non-alcoholic, organic, carbonated beverage from Germany is now available in the United States.[9][10][11] Seventy-three million bottles of Bionade were sold in 2006.[12] Bionade is already present in Austria, Australia, Switzerland, Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Julie Treumann (January 2007). A Brand-New Brew. Time Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-12-29.
  2. ^ a b (German)Lauer, Marco: Der Wahnsinn in der Flasche. taz online. Accessed 2007-12-29.
  3. ^ a b Bryant, Miranda:Bionade: The health drink that looks like beer. The Independent. Accessed 2007-12-29.
  4. ^ a b (German)Gertz, Holger: Die Volksbrause. Süddeutsche Zeitung. Accessed 2007-12-29.
  5. ^ Merrett, Neil: News briefs: Heineken, Grolsch and Bionade. Beveragedaily.com. Accessed 30-12-2007.
  6. ^ (German)Dengel, Birgit: Bionade plant Expansion in die USA. Financial Times Deutschland. Accessed December 30, 2007.
  7. ^ Smith, David Gordon: Organic Soda 'Made in Germany' Takes on the World. Spiegel Online International. Accessed December 30, 2007.
  8. ^ (German)Haustein-Teßmer, Oliver: Bionade umgarnt die durstigen Gipfel-Gegner. Welt online. Accessed December 30, 2007
  9. ^ Financial Times Deutschland, September 12, 2007, page 5
  10. ^ David Gordon Smith (August 2007). The Bionade Success Story; Organic Soda 'Made in Germany' Takes on the World. Spiegel Online. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.
  11. ^ Beverage Spectrum Magazine, September-October 2007, page 72
  12. ^ Oliver Haustein-Tessmer (June 2007). Bionade umgarnt die durstigen Gipfel-Gegner. Die Welt. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.

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