SodaStream to pull controversial plant from West Bank settlement

SodaStream, the Israeli company whose water carbonation machines went from must-have Christmas gift to the target of a boycott campaign earlier this year, plans to pull its factory from a West Bank settlement.

SodaStream, which touts its products as a way to make fizzy drinks for less money and save the planet from billions of discarded plastic beverage bottles, plans to shut down the factory by mid-2015 and open an new facility in southern Israel‘s Negev region.

But the company denied the decision, or its slumping stock value revenue, had anything to do with the controversy.

A campaign known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) targeted the company for setting up in what’s considered occupied Palestinian territory —the Ma’aleh Adumim Adumim settlement is one of 15 industrial areas Israel set up in the West Bank after seizing territory in 1967, The New York Times reported.

Controversy erupted after humanitarian organization Oxfam parted ways with actress Scarlett Johansson, after an eight-year relationship, when she became SodaStream’s brand ambassador and face of its advertising campaign.

“Oxfam believes that businesses, such as SodaStream, that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support,” the U.K. based organization said in a statement in January. But, Oxfam said it was not a supporter of the BDS movement or its objectives.

Amid the controversy, Employment Minister Jason Kenney purchased a SodaStream machine and tweeted a photo of it, taking a potshot at Oxfam for ending its relationship with Johansson.

READ MORE: Jason Kenney supports SodaStream, jabs Oxfam on Twitter

SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum said, in a third quarter report released Wednesday,the company’s performance was “pressured by challenging selling conditions for soda makers and flavors primarily in the U.S.,” and results in other markets were also mixed — Canada included.

Sodastream’s third quarter revenue fell from US$144.6 million during the same period last year to $125.9 million.

While the company said the BDS campaign against it was not a factor in its current situation, it is putting some of the blame for its struggles on the decision to invest in Johansson and a multi-million dollar Super Bowl commercial.

“We made a mistake spending millions of dollars in a Super Bowl commercial to get Scarlett Johansson to say ‘Sorry, Pepsi and Coke’, because people don’t want to drink Coca-Cola; they’re looking for ways to drink more water. That was our mistake and we’re sorry,” The Indpendent quoted Birnbaum on Friday.

The commercial had to be edited, to remove the jab at the beverage giants, before going to air because Pepsi was the sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show.

SodaStream went into damage control after calls for a boycott grew, insisting it provides much needed and better paid jobs for Palestinians.

Birnbaum said in February SodaStream provides jobs for about 500 Palestinians. He insisted, at the time, moving the factory would put them out of work.

SodaStream and its work with Palestinians was the focus of a short film, called The Factory, released in May.

READ MORE: Israel to build 1,000 housing units in east Jerusalem

Regardless of SodaStream’s reasoning for the move, BDS proponents see the news as a victory.