The Abrams Clean Tech Report

 

Changing Dynamics in the Bottled Soda Industry

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

I was contacted by a pr firm the other day regarding a new product on the market, and I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to write for a few days.

The company is Soda Club, USA. The product is The Fountain Jet Home Soda Maker. Mind you – Jon and I don’t drink soda – pop, if you prefer. We don’t for a variety of reasons. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy Pellegrino or Root Beer periodically – but we really don’t drink the stuff. So I wouldn’t be the target consumer here. Having said that…I find the business-consumer play that Soda Club is pursuing very interesting, and valid, and they’re certainly doing what they can to get people to think green, especially those who consume endless quantities of plastic-bottled beverages, and don’t want to kick the habit. But I have to admit, what I’m even more curious about is how to take the idea and change the soda bottling industry itself from a business-business perspective. This is a really interesting concept to consider implementing given our challenge of how to reduce the quantity of plastic bottles manufactured for the sole purpose of creating millions and millions of plastic soda bottles.

The technology Soda Club has is clearly for home use; it’s a little too cumbersome at this point to consider it for b-b, as far as I’m concerned, because as an in-office solution where traffic is high, as is use, I’d think you’d need something requiring fewer steps in the process, most likely, for adoption rates by consumers to be high enough. But a solution for high volume use could be the key. There’s really no reason that the big soda makers couldn’t decide to acquire such technology or create similar technology for high volume use for the b-b marketplace, where they could then build revenue streams selling the technology, (much like they already do selling and placing vending machines) along with sets of single serve pods of soda syrup (much like coffee makers sell single serve pod brew). There then would be no need to create such endless numbers of plastic bottles filled with carbonated, flavored waters – whether it be water itself, or Root Beer, or Coke, or otherwise…right? I mean, we can all drink soda from reusable cups, whether recycled paper cups or plastic cups made from corn, or otherwise…

Just a thought. I think the idea the company is onto is good…now let’s see if they can get the soda industry to change gears even more…the industry needs to do something, that’s for sure.

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