Fanta was born in the austerity of post-war Germany, when the Coca-Cola company had to use sugar beet rather than cane to sweeten it, and the name is based on ‘Fantasie’. The name was chosen in collaboration with Coca Cola HQ in the US, who weren't impressed by the product and thought it needed an exciting word to sell it.
In the period leading up to World War II, between 1930 and 1936, Coca-Cola set up a division of the company in Germany, and continued that venture during the war.
Coca-Cola was growing rapidly in Germany and the rest of Europe in the pre-war years. Between 1933-39 the numbers of crates of Coke sold in Nazi Germany rose from about 100,000 to 4.5 million per year, and 50 factories were built to meet demand.
It recreated its image as a German company and allowed the Germans to produce all but two, secret, Coca-Cola ingredients in their own factories.
After war broke out in 1939 it became increasingly difficult to transport the syrups needed to make Coke to the German factories due to various embargoes on imports into the Nazi Reich.
With supplies of syrup rapidly diminishing and ceasing altogether by 1941, the head of German operations, Max Keith, looked for an alternative way of driving production and making use of his bottling lines.
In 1941 Max Keith, developed Fanta orange soda using orange flavoring and all the German-made Coke ingredients.
The recipe included scraps and leftovers from various industrial processes. Limited to ingredients available under conditions of rationing, Keith devised a soft drink based on the by-products of industrial cheese and cider production. Whey was used from milk factories and scraps of various fruits, mainly apples, from the fruit pressing factories were added with various other ingredients to make the drink they called Fanta.
The recipe proved successful, with over 3 million cases produced in 1943. The name Fanta itself was decided upon after a brief brainstorming session, when salesman Joe Knipp responded to Keith's request to 'use their imagination' ('Fantasie' in German) by immediately replying 'Fanta!'
Despite the increasing devastation caused by Allied bombing, for most the war the German Coke company maintained profitable annual sales figures of about sixty million bottles.
In 1955, Fanta Orange as the first new product is introduced in Naples, Italy, the first new product to be distributed by the Company. The Fanta line of flavored beverages comes to the United States in 1960. Fanta products, which come in a variety of fruit flavors such as orange and grape, had been sold by Coke bottlers in other countries for many years.
Fanta in the early 1970s, were attacked because they had artificial color. Competitors used this to demean the product even though the coloring was quite safe. The company replaced the artificial coloring with natural coloring, but the impact on product sales was severe for about five years before began to grow again.
History of beverage: Fanta
