It all began with a warning from Hamburg food inspectors. Lemonaid fought for five and a half years for the right to call its drinks lemonade. Now the company has won.
In future, lemonade will no longer have to contain a minimum amount of sugar (or sweetener). This was decided by the German Food Code Commission (DLMBK). This brings to an end a five-and-a-half-year-long war by the Hamburg-based beverage manufacturer Lemonaid against German food labeling rules.
It is a small paragraph in the old guidelines for soft drinks that made life difficult for Lemonaid founder Paul Bethke. It states: Lemonades “have a total sugar content of at least 7 percent by weight.” In diet sodas, this can be “partially or completely replaced by sweeteners.” But less sweet is not possible.
Lemonade guideline: 5.5 to 6.8 percent sugar is too little
When Paul Bethke and Felix Langguth founded Lemonaid fifteen years ago, they wanted to bring a special lemonade onto the market that would be different: less sugar, but no sweeteners; good, organic ingredients – and, if possible, fair trade. In addition, part of the proceeds would go to good causes. In the end, the newly composed drinks in the passion fruit, lime or blood orange flavors contained 5.5 to 6.8 percent sugar. That’s about the same amount as in juice spritzers and much less than in traditional lemonades.
That worked well for a while. But on September 26, 2018, a letter arrived from the Hamburg-Mitte district’s consumer protection office. In it, the office criticized the low sugar content of the Lemonaid lemonade lime at six percent: “If the recipe of the sample remains unchanged,” “the designation as ‘lemonade’ is not possible.” For Paul Bethke, he tells the starit was a shock: “I never dreamed that there would be a minimum regulation for sugar.”
Public sympathy hinders ban
At first they tried to sort it out with the office. Then they turned to Lemonaid. The attention led to the then Hamburg Health Senator Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks (SPD) instructing the department not to complain about the lemonade any further. The senator also called for a change in the rule.
But one and a half years later, a Lemonaid lemonade – this time in Bonn. Now up to the Federal Ministry of Food, even a picture of the minister Julia Klöckner (CDU) made of sugar in front of the ministry. That was difficult for Klöckner, because the Ministry of Food had been running campaigns against the high sugar consumption of Germans for some time.
It is not politics that stands in the way, but a food commission
The real hurdle for Lemonaid was not politics, but a commission: the German Food Code Commission (DLMBK). It analyses the market and then determines what certain foods such as juices, meat salad or liver sausage must be like. The idea is certainly laudable, as it protects consumers from being misled.
The commission had once determined that a lemonade in Germany always contained more than 7 percent sugar, which can be replaced with sweetener if necessary, but not simply reduced to less than that. The commission is made up of roughly equal numbers of consumer advocates, scientists, food inspectors and business representatives.
Lemonaid doesn’t want to be a “soft drink”
Lemonaid could have avoided the problem from the beginning by calling its product a “soft drink”. But that was out of the question for the founders. Firstly, the word “soda” is anchored in the name “Lemonaid”, so it is practically in the DNA. And secondly, Lemonaid does not use labels “for ecological reasons”. All information is written directly and permanently on the bottles using ceramic printing. So many millions of bottles would have had to be destroyed, “that would have been the end of us”, says Bethe today to the star.
Lemonaid was then able to present its position to the Food Code Commission. But the negotiations did not go as hoped. At the beginning of 2021, a first proposal was made: drinks that contain less than 7 percent sugar could also be declared as lemonade. But only if “the lower sugar content is sufficiently indicated”. It is a proposal from the traditionalists on the committee.
“Caution – low sugar”
This would have forced Lemonaid to destroy bottles as well. Lemonaid is fighting back with a small guerrilla marketing campaign and is hanging tags with a warning label in the shape of cigarette packets on some of its bottles: .
Then the public goes quiet. But the debates in the committee continue, there is criticism of the obligation to indicate “low sugar”, which would ultimately be tantamount to advertising. In May 2023, the expert committee will then decide to abolish the sugar limit without replacement. This will be followed by hearings and legal reviews.
The long mills of the Commission
The DLMBK committees are staffed on a voluntary basis, and the plenary session only meets twice a year. And there are many foods to classify and markets to survey. At the end of 2023, the plenary session of the commission will finally meet – and agree. However, legal review by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs are then still required.
And so it is that last week “the new guidelines of the German Food Code” were finally published in the Federal Gazette. This week a publication is to take place in the Joint Ministerial Gazette. This means that the old guidelines can also be removed from the websites of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Food Code Commission. They will then be history once and for all.
In future, the guideline will only contain one general sentence about sugar: “Lemonades contain … ingredients to achieve a sweet taste (e.g. types of sugar, sweeteners).”
“We are very pleased,” says Lemonaid CEO Paul Bethke to star. Of course, they had hoped for this decision, but could never be sure. “It’s a bit strange that it took five years.”
Source: Stern
