Grape soda has been around for a long time in America but never really feels like it’s taken off in the UK and, in fact, the UK really doesn’t do a wide variety of soda flavours compared even to our European neighbours who often have grape, strawberry and pineapple flavours.
Fanta, of course, is famous around the world for their orange soda, but the much loved original was produced in Germany in 1940 during the Second World War by the German Coca Cola bottling company due to trade embargos between Nazi Germany and the US.
Due to the fact that the German plant could no longer source cola syrup for its soda, the plant manager Max Keith created his own flavour from apple flavourings left over from lollies and whey from cheese makers, he made a fruity mix which became very popular in Germany during the war.
The name ‘Fanta’ was actually decided during an employee competition, where Max Keith told the workers to let their ‘fantasie’, German for imagination, run wild, before somebody in sales decided to shorten the word to just Fanta.
Fanta is now sold all across the world in a variety of flavours but Grape, aside from the original orange, has proved to be one of the fizzy drinks success stories, and certainly in the US.