For those, not in the know, allow me to explain what happened. Sodastream has been a company that has provided the convenience of "DIY pop at home since 1998 with the Sodastream device. You could carbonate your own water, and add a syrup to it to turn sparkling water into pop. It was great!! I bought a Sodastream back in about 2010 and loved using it. Sodastream was pretty popular too. It had a following of customers that kept coming back and buying syrups. Then something happened...
They changed the syrup.
In lieu of smart business strategy, they completely removed the product line that made them successful and put out new formulations of syrup. This, understandably, left a lot of long-time Sodastream users upset (including me). The old Sodastream bottles allowed for 50 servings. The new syrup allows for only 29. Also, the amount of syrup in each bottle has changed: 500 mL for the old bottles vs. 440 mL for the new. The syrup in the new bottles has been known to not taste as good as the old syrup either. This becomes a major problem.
Sodastream's market strategy previously focused on trying to be better than pop in every way.
- Less plastic in the landfills.
- Less expensive than pop.
- Better tasting than pop.
Sodastream is now more expensive than pop. And now, by a larger margin than before. For the most part, Sodastream WAS cheaper than pop, (unless you bought two-liter bottles of generic pop, in which case, there was no comparison. Sodastream was supposed to provide great tasting soda for less than regular pop. Now, the new syrup costs the same as the old syrup. So, you are paying more per serving than before. The increased rate in which you have to buy syrup means that now, Sodastream is more expensive than pop. I'm better off buying regular, unhealthy pop, than drink Sodastream now. Sodastream is still a better alternative to regular pop, health-wise, but definitely more expensive.
And the last point leaves itself up to opinion. A lot of the people who drink the new syrups have stated that they do not taste as good as they used to. In fact, a lot of people have even suggested the new syrups are "watered down." On top of that, the new syrups have to be refrigerated and do not keep as long as the old syrups.
Apparently, Sodastream's strategy was to appeal to a new crowd. They wanted to appeal to people who were more about health and not about pop. Basically, the sparkling water movement. The problem is, the new crowd didn't make Sodastream big. They turned their backs on the customers that made them big in the first place to appeal to a new crowd. That was their big screw up. They should have kept both product lines going to appeal to both old, and new customers. Sodastream, in my opnion, has been a soda company. It even has soda in the name. But now, they are tailoring themselves to sparkling water, and not so much soda. I can buy a large bottle of flavored sparkling water at Walmart, right now, for less than a dollar, so they have their work cut out for them trying to jump into an established market.
However, complaining about the problem isn't the only thing I did. I wanted to be able to justify using my Sodastream system. Kraft foods and Sodastream used to have a contract deal. They made syrups together. Kool-Aid had 3 flavors of syrup available with Sodastream before Sodastream changed everything up: Cherry, Grape, and Tropical Punch. I have actually gone through the trouble to invent my own syrup using Kool-Aid. I initially tried to replicate as closely as I could the flavor of Sodastream's Kool-Aid line. And then I one-upped it. Now, I make my own syrups, they are caffeinated, and taste great. If you want the recipe, click "Recipe for Kool Aid Pop" link at the top of the page.
Thanks for reading!!! Feel free to comment.
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