SodaStream built its reputation as a home carbonation brand but became notorious for its operations in the illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank. For years it symbolized the normalization of occupation economies—using stolen Palestinian land, exploiting settlement infrastructure, and marketing its products as chic lifestyle goods divorced from their political context.
After sustained international boycott pressure, SodaStream relocated its main factory inside Israel, but the move did not sever its ties to apartheid-linked economics. Its profits now flow upward to PepsiCo, embedding the brand in one of the world’s largest food and beverage conglomerates with a record of ecological harm and labour exploitation. Within the BDS movement, SodaStream remains a priority target. It's an example of how consumer products can obscure, and profit from, colonial violence.
SodaStream is rated High Impact because it exemplifies how PepsiCo profits from and normalizes Israel’s apartheid economy. More than a niche product, SodaStream serves as a case study in how “sustainable lifestyle” marketing can be used to mask complicity in occupation, settler infrastructure, and state violence. Boycotting SodaStream is strategically important both for its direct history of settlement production and for what it reveals about PepsiCo’s broader portfolio—where everyday consumer purchases reinforce systems of exploitation and apartheid.