- Premium-Cola
Infobox Beverage
name = Premium-Cola
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manufacturer = Interessengruppe Premium
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related =Afri-Cola
website = [http://www.premium-cola.de official Homepage]Premium-Cola is a soft drink brand founded in December
2001 inHamburg by acollective of fans of the German brand afri-cola, at the time reduced incaffeine .The collective (which named itself "Interessengruppe Premium") started by running a protest campaign for more than two years against recipe changes in
Afri-Cola .This well-known German brand (founded
1931 ) had just been bought by the Mineralbrunnen Überkingen-Teinach AG in1999 , which then secretly changed the recipe: the new afri-cola contained a reduced amount ofcaffeine (the original afri-cola contained 250 mg/L), and the rather strong taste was significantly softened, in order to meet the taste of a wider variety of customers.The protests of the "Interessengruppe Premium" lead to some public awareness, but remained unsuccessful as far as afri-cola was concerned - so they started producing the original recipe cola on their own and named it Premium-Cola.
To avoid legal issues with the Mineralbrunnen AG, one ingredient had to be changed later in 2004 (
phosphoric acid instead ofmalic acid ).This didn't change the taste at all, but marked a change of attitude for the collective: The afri-cola brand itself was no longer of interest.Premium-Cola is not a company, since profit is not a goal of the collective. There is no office, no salaries and no actual boss. All members of the collective make a living by other jobs and build up Premium-Cola as sort of a hobby. All issues are decided on collectively, there is hardly any advertising - instead, art pictures are printed on the inside of the bottles' labels.
The collective puts much thought into "proper" brand leading and acting within the economy, instead of expanding. Premium-Cola is being sold in selected outlets (not only Clubs and Bars) only, whose philosophy must be similar to that of the brand. Overall, Premium-Cola can be considered a brand philosophy project rather than a company.
External links
* [http://www.premium-cola.de official Homepage]
* [http://www.psfk.com/2007/11/uwe-lubbermann-talks-to-psfk-about-premium-cola.html Interview with founder]
* [http://www.ipremium.de Homepage of Interessengruppe Premium]
* [http://www.afri-cola.de Homepage of afri-cola]
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