Fritz-kola, the soft drink of two German students that challenges Coca-Cola by taking the dose of caffeine to the maximum allowed by law

They came up with the idea one night over frozen pizza and Coke in the kitchen of their student residence in Hamburg.

Mirco Wolf Wiegert and Lorenz Hampl, then two twenty-somethings wanting to start a business and looking for a business that was lucrative but, above all, fun, set out to create a new cola.

It did not matter to them that there was already one taking over the world market.

His was going to be different, and better.

With less sugar, much more caffeine and a recognizable flavor.

They had no idea where to start, but they put together 7,000 euros, registered the company and started looking for a manufacturer to help them create the formula.

It took them a while, but they found one and, after much trial and error, they found their ideal cola drink.

They did a first test with a party at their residence: they considered it a success that their colleagues continued to party until the next morning.

The caffeine content was just right, they concluded.

The first 240 boxes of 24 bottles of Fritz-kola, with k, were delivered by themselves, in a Volkswagen van.

Wiegert, now 48 years old, smiles when he remembers those days of illusion, precariousness and lots of partying.

They went to bars, cafeterias and restaurants and, pulling their lips, convinced the owners to give their

.

The restaurateurs were amused by those kids who wanted to challenge the big monopoly with a drink made in Hamburg and that only used reusable glass bottles.

Twenty years later, Fritz-kola employs 300 people and is distributed throughout almost all of Europe.

The brand, with five bottling plants, has become strong especially in Germany and other central European countries, such as Austria and Switzerland.

In many places in Berlin, for example, it is the only cola available.

Little could Wiegert have imagined that the idea he developed with his childhood friend would end up sponsoring music festivals across the continent and raising eyebrows with eye-catching advertising campaigns.

“We are expanding south to France and Spain, where we want to start producing locally,” he explains at the company's headquarters, modern offices near Hamburg's central station where many casually dressed young people circulate.

The creatives, the marketing and communication staff and the business side work here.

The bottling plants are distributed throughout Germany, each one at one point, to distribute from there northwards, to Scandinavia;

to the east, towards the Czech Republic and Poland, to the west (Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom) and to the south.

On the meeting room table, the different drinks produced by Fritz-kola, which over the years has expanded its repertoire: lemon, orange, apple, rhubarb... They all reproduce the original logo: the smiling faces of two boys in black and white.

Two boys who are themselves.

Overwhelmed as they were by the lack of budget, they wanted to save paying for a designer, so they took a picture of themselves against a white background in the ping pong room in the basement of the residence, they took it to a store to have it digitized and asked a friend for help to create the silhouette.

He stayed in black and white because it was cheaper to print the labels that way than in color, Wiegert says.

Today that logo is as recognizable as the brand, or more.

Part of the success of Fritz-kola is due to its halo of authenticity, of an artisan or close product and apparently far from the industrial, explains Francisco Torreblanca, branding expert and professor

the ESIC business and marketing school.

In addition to the flavor of the cola and the groundbreaking of its image and its name (the kola with a k), the company has promoted what in the advertising field is called

, that is, take advantage of the peculiar history of the brand.

“The new type of consumer is very hungry for novelty.

We are interconnected and want to try new things, even more so after the pandemic.

And this brand is surprising ”, he comments to explain why it has managed to leave Germany and find a place in countries like Spain, where it can already be found in more than a thousand bars and restaurants.

To come up with the name of the drink, the founders decided to listen to their future customers, recalls Wiegert.

Between the two of them they drew up a list of possible brands related to Hamburg and northern Germany: Alster kola, after the lake of the Hanseatic city;

Elbe kola, by the river, which also gives its name to the spectacular concert hall in the city;

Northern kola… And Fritz, the name of the ordinary German par excellence.

They stood at the entrance of a shopping center and surveyed shoppers themselves.

Friedrich's simple but endearing diminutive took the majority of votes.

The k symbolizes the desire to do things differently, Wiegert notes.

Hampl left the company in 2016 to undertake other projects.

Wiegert says that he has not tired of the challenges.

“Our long-term goal is to become the first cola drink in Europe in the catering segment, in bars and cafes,” he says.

At the moment its market share is around 4%, according to data from the company, which does not disclose sales data but only growth (5.3% in 2022 compared to the previous year for cola).

Although Coca-Cola's drinks can be found in virtually every supermarket in Germany, competition with Coca-Cola cans and plastic bottles is impossible.

Nor is that the audience they are addressing.

They wanted a cola drink that was associated with partying, with special occasions.

They had other students like themselves in mind.

They wanted to “provoke a high” in whoever tried it, recalls Wiegert.

That is why they added the maximum allowed by caffeine law, 25 milligrams per 100 milliliters.

The Fritz-kola also has a touch of lemon and less sugar -there is also a version with sweeteners- and it is only sold in small formats, 0.2 and 0.33 liters.

In German bars and restaurants, it has been the second best-selling brand for years, ahead of Pepsi, according to Nielsen data.

Sustainability is another of the pillars of the brand;

that is why it is only sold in glass bottles.

In Germany and central Europe they work with returnable bottles, which are cleaned and refilled up to 50 times.

In markets further away, such as Spain, they use recyclable bottles.

"You will not see our containers floating in the sea or on the beaches," says Wiegert, convinced.

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