Sodastream CEO says Israeli company to open factory in Gaza Strip
Until 2014, Sodastream's production was based in a West Bank settlement
The Israeli company Sodastream on Thursday announced it plans to open a factory in the Gaza Strip, in an effort to provide Palestinians in the impoverished enclave with jobs.
Sodastream’s CEO, Daniel Birnbaum, announced the company’s plans while speaking at the Globes Business Conference in Jerusalem on Thursday.
“We want the people in Gaza to have jobs, real jobs, because where there is prosperity there can be peace,” Birnbaum said.
Sodastream’s decision to open a manufacturing facility in Gaza, where the Hamas government has formally committed to the destruction of Israel, is based on the company’s core values.
“Our diversity is very important, for example our factory here in Israel. We love to show what peace looks like. There are 1000 Jews and 1000 Arabs at our factory, including a few hundred Palestinians. And you wouldn’t believe it - we get along - in peace and harmony and people are smiling. Friendships are emerging,” Birnbaum said.
"People on the factory floor at Sodastream will say that at Sodastream we manufacture peace every day, and along the way we also make soda. It's fantastic. We want to amplify that. We want more companies to do that. And now we have a project - we're establishing a manufacturing facility - as a co-packer in Gaza. We want the people in Gaza to have jobs, real jobs, because where there is prosperity there can be peace," he added.
PepsiCo said in August that it was buying the Israeli company, which makes machines to carbonate home tap water, for $3.2 billion in the top American food and beverage company's largest acquisition in nearly a decade.
“One of the principles of our founder, Don Kendall, was that business bridges cultures,” Pepsi CEO Ramon Laguarta said while speaking at the Globes conference.
“When there are problems, business can really bridge differences and create sustainable relationships. Kendall put that to work when he opened the Russian market to a US company and he really bridged the differences of two distinct countries into one sustainable business,” Laguarta added.
In October 2014, the company conceded to international criticism that also targeted its celebrity face Scarlet Johansson for basing its production in the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank, moving its headquarters to Tel Aviv and its production to Rahat, a Bedouin city in Israel’s south.
Before the move, SodaStream employed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank unable to obtain permits to work in Israel. The Palestinian workers could not stay with the company when it moved to less politically charged territory, though hundreds of new workers were hired to work in the main factory, many from Rahat.
Birnbaum has blamed the prime minister’s office for blocking work permits for Palestinian workers and denying that the company ceded to boycott pressure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the deal as representative of the Jewish state’s innovation, applauding “the important decision to keep the company in Israel,” saying it would prosper the Jewish state.
SodaStream was founded in 1991 and employs some 3,500 workers who produce nearly 500,000 machines each month for sale in 46 countries worldwide.