Sodastream samsungarticle

Portemag.com Sodastream and Samsung article At this year’s Super Bowl, a company named SodaStream added some fizzy controversy when CBS pulled their ads, fearing backlash from Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Now the Israeli company’s bid to vanquish the soda market may have just gained some serious headway in American kitchens. As of this month, Samsung is introducing a refrigerator with a SodaStream automatic sparkling water dispenser on the door front.

The Samsung Four-Door Refrigerator incorporates a version of the SodaStream home carbonating device which lets people make their own choice of cola or root beer, fruit soda, or just plain sparkling water.

At a price of almost $4,000, it’s a stunner of a stainless steel appliance. More than that, according to SodaStream’s CEO Daniel Birnbaum, it’s an investment in the future. With a soda-making machine in every house, “there will be no more need to buy, carry, store and find a way to dispose the multiple billions of plastic bottles and cans.” Here’s a potential boost to the planet, and the bottom lines of consumers.

With the possible exception of those with stock in Coke or Pepsi.

It’s way too early to say if these Fortune 500 mainstays have anything to really worry about with SodaStream. But for people who love seltzer and soda, this is a tasty use of technology—maybe preferable to the Samsung T9000 which comes with a touchscreen and various apps.

SodaStream’s President Yonah Lloyd sees his product as one of those innovations whose time has come. “Home soda is emerging. A dozen years from now

we’ll look back and say, ‘I was there, I remember,’ like when we saw our first cell phone.”

Consumers trope towards empowering products, and quasi-instant soda on the fridge door saves them a drive to the market, the hassle of recycling, and a healthier alternative to what we’ll call Big Bubble. SodaStream’s beverage has on average 2/3 fewer calories, less sugar, and carbohydrates than old school soda. Plus, you can choose the amount of bubbles in your brew. Now that’s empowerment.

It truly is what Yonah Lloyd calls a “one-two punch of convenience, and this wonderful environmental story.” In the United States alone, many millions of plastic bottles are thrown out hourly. The recycling rate is less than 25%, and recycling is not all it seems if you take into account the greenhouse gases released transporting it. The killer stat is this: all the plastic every made is still here. Somewhere, but here.

SodaStream is a reusable system—one bottle can make as many as 50,000 liters of carbonated soda or seltzer. In the future even the syrup packages may be reusable, according to Lloyd.

This is a feel-good product that satisfies on a few levels. It’s the ground floor for SodaStream, but the partnership with Samsung, which produces 13% of the world’s refrigerators, sets it up to lead the home soda market.

Early adopters, or just plain soda fanatics, may dig deep for the mumblynamed RF31FMESBR. But SodaStream’s envisions the system in more affordable fridges, and soon they’ll provide a full soda experience.

A home soda fountain at the touch of a button! Burp.