Bionade Soda

A couple of weeks ago, PSFK wrote in the article ‘Local Drinks Bring The Battle To Global Soda Makers‘ about the Bionade Soda we found on our trip to Germany. At the time we said:

In nearly every Berlin café, currywurrst house, grocery store and restaurant we went to, one drink brand stood proudly on counters, in refrigerators and on menus.

Now Business Week puts the spotlight on the soda brand and says in an article:

The re-launched drink hit the zeitgeist exactly, appealing to health-conscious consumers who were drinking less beer just as they were embracing organic food and drink. Bionade (pronounced “Bee-oh-nah-deh”) soon became a firm fixture on supermarket shelves and behind the bar in trendy nightspots.

“Instead of selling it as an ‘ecological’ drink based on ideology, we appealed to a certain lifestyle,” Blum says.

…Now, of course, kids are no longer central to Bionade’s business plan, having been replaced by German hipsters. Even they, though, are no longer enough to satisfy the company’s thirst for success, and now Bionade is expanding internationally. It is already present in Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and is just now hitting the shelves in Ireland. But the company has its eyes set on a much larger prize: the US. The search is already on for a suitable American distribution partner.

The Success of Germany’s Bionade Soda: