QUELLE

A REVOLUTIONARY NEW KIND OF SOFT DRINKS.
2021/22

Drinks from the supermarket are usually not sustainable and
bring many problems with them. "quelle︎" revolutionizes
the consumption and production of soft drinks in a local, sus-
tainable and modern way. Offering the user a unique new
experience to enjoy individual customized beverages. The
concept consists of an app, the beverage vending machine
and a marketing campaign. For proving the concept, we
built a working technical prototype and programmed an app.

Problem

Producing a soft drink is pretty easy but buying one frome the supermarket brings quite some problems. On average, a soft drinks consist of 89% water, 8% sweetener and 2% aroma. In many cases, this water is pumped from the groundwater. As a result the regions affected become seriously poor in water, which in turn has a bad effect on people, nature and animals. In addition, the beverages are mainly filled into plastic bottles and delivered to us via long transport routes. That’s why they also bring a large CO₂ footprint with them.

Reason

If most soft drinks from the supermarket bring with them all these disadvantages – why don't we quit drinking them and instead prefer to drink local water from the tap? Research has shown: A large part of us does not want to give up soft drinks and wants flavour in the drink.

As a result, we've asked ourselves how could we continue to offer people the benefits of soft drinks while making it efficient and sustainable. To address this global problem, we started to create solutions and developed our "quelle︎" concept.

App

"quelle︎" includes an app. The app consists of 3 sections:
the drinks, the map and the analyses. In the drinks section, you can customize drinks the way you like them. Our sugar alternatives as sweeteners enable inclusive diabetic-friendly consumption. On the map you can find the nearest vending machine, related information, and a navigation function. The app analyses your consumption behaviour and can create interesting visualisations for you. For example, you can see how many plastic bottles you already saved or facts about your drinking behaviour.

Vending-Machine

The beverage-vending-machine is connected to the local drinking-water-network and allows you to produce your beverage individually on site. A water filter makes any water drinkable and ensures a consistent taste. Through a transparent cut-out on the vending machine, "quelle︎" creates a revolutionary new relationship between production and customer. The vending machine allows insights into the production processes and thereby makes it experienceable.

Coorporate Identity

Through the advertising campaign, we want to reach our target group in their everyday lives. The campaign draws on many design features of the app and vending machine. There’s a matching bottle, made of recycled plastic, with a lid that can also be used as a cup.

Process

The work process was very interdisciplinary. While it was very research intensive at the beginning, it became very practical towards the end. At the beginning, we dived deep into the world of soft drinks. We had a strong exchange with established companies as well as newcomers from the industry. Afterwards our process was characterised by an iterative concept creation and rapid development of prototypes (hands-on). At the end, we entered many new fields of disciplines. For example, we learned the tool Blender or photographed dynamic fruit pictures for a consistent design. In addition, we also developed a technical prototype (proof of concept). This means that we actually produced customised drinks via an App and robotics.