Fritz-kola
{{Short description|German caffeinated soft drink}}
{{Infobox drink
| name = Fritz-Kola
| logo = Fritz-kulturgueter schwarz.png
| image =
| caption = The original cola bottle.
| type = Cola
| manufacturer =
| origin = Hamburg, Germany
| introduced = {{start date and age|2003|02|28}}
| discontinued =
| related =
| variants =
| website = [https://www.fritz-kola.com/ fritz-kola.com/en]
}}
Fritz-kola (stylized as fritz-kola) is a soft drink made in north Germany and shipped to many nations in the European Union. It has a relatively high caffeine content and is sold in glass bottles with labels which were originally black and white, using the faces of the two founders in the logo.
History
Two students from Hamburg, Lorenz Hampl and Mirco Wiegert, started selling Fritz-kola in 2003.{{cite web |author=Sean Williams |url=https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/how-fritz-kola-took-on-coke-and-kind-of-won/34163/ |title=The New and the Next: How Fritz-Kola Took on Coke (and Kind of Won) |website=Ozy |date=2 January 2015 }}{{cite news |author= Lorelei Mihala |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53593138 |title=Business: The two students who took on Coke and Pepsi |work=BBC News |date=17 August 2020}}{{Cite web |author=James Clay |url=https://www.jamesclay.co.uk/news/fritz-kola-soft-drinks-james-clay|title=Fritz-Kola – the Hamburgian original proves soft drinks can be done better |website=www.jamesclay.co.uk|access-date=2017-08-27}} Clay gives the founding year as 2002. They had a brewery help them develop a cola recipe, choosing to use less sugar and more caffeine (25mg of caffeine per 100ml) than Coke or Pepsi, and adding lemon flavour. They polled people outside a shopping centre to choose the company name. To save money, they used black and white labels and a photoshopped version of pictures of their heads as a logo; they sold the first crates to bars on a returnable basis, and did not establish an office for three years.
Hampl left the business in 2016. {{as of|2020|08}}, Wiegert heads the company and owns two-thirds of it. The company employs 280 people. Five bottling plants produce the cola, which is sold in a number of European countries; in 2019 its 330ml bottles outsold all brands except Coke, and its other major markets are the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, and Austria. Sales in 2015 were €7.4 million.{{cite news |url=https://www.forbes.at/artikel/der-erste-fritze.html |title=Der erste Fritz |publisher=Forbes Austria |language=de |date=14 August 2015 |access-date=2020-08-17 }}
Varieties
{{Primary sources section|date=September 2021}}
Through the years Fritz-kola has offered many variants of its cola as well as different kinds of soft drinks, including:
- Fritz-kola:{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-kola|title=fritz-kola Archive|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-kola{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-kola/fritz-kola/|title=fritz-kola|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-kola kola-coffee-lemonade{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-kola/fritz-kola-kola-coffee-lemonade/|title=fritz-kola kola-coffee-lemonade|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-kola sugarfree{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-kola/fritz-kola-sugarfree/|title=fritz-kola sugarfree|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-limo:{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-limo/|title=fritz-limo Archive|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-limo orangeade{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-limo/fritz-limo-orangeade/|title=fritz-limo orangeade|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-limo melon{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-limo/fritz-limo-melon/|title=fritz-limo melon|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-limo lemonade{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-limo/fritz-limo-lemonade/|title=fritz-limo lemonade|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-limo apple, cherry and elderberry{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-limo/fritz-limo-apple-cherry-and-elderberry/|title=fritz-limo apple, cherry and elderberry|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- mischmasch kola-orange-lemonade{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/mischmasch/mischmasch-kola-orange-lemonade/|title=mischmasch kola-orange-lemonade|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-spritz:{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-spritz/|title=fritz-spritz Archive|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-spritz organic cloudy sparkling apple{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-spritz/fritz-spritz-organic-cloudy-sparkling-apple/|title=fritz-spritz organic cloudy sparkling apple|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-spritz organic sparkling grape{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-spritz/fritz-spritz-organic-sparkling-grape/|title=fritz-spritz organic sparkling grape|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- Fritz-spritz organic sparkling rhubarb{{Cite web|url=https://www.fritz-kola.de/en/vielfalt/fritz-spritz/fritz-spritz-organic-sparkling-rhubarb/|title=fritz-spritz organic sparkling rhubarb|website=Fritz-Kola}}
- fritz-mate (discontinued)
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Colas}}
{{soft-drink-stub}}
{{Germany-cuisine-stub}}