Pepsi drinks Kas and completes the company’s absorption of the emblematic soft drink brand from Vitoria

Kas no longer exists as a commercial company with its own life. This same week, the announcement of the absorption by Pepsi of the emblematic Alava soft drink company started 70 years ago by the Knörr family was published. The agreement was closed at the shareholders’ meeting of both companies last June when the merger by absorption of Kas, SL by the Pepsico group was unanimously approved “with the dissolution and extinction without liquidation of the absorbed company and attribution of its “full equity on a universal basis to the absorbing company.” This is a formality, because the absorption and dissolution takes place now, and Kas is no longer a separate company and legal entity, but the company and brand has been part of Pepsico since 1991. The group has also converted the Alava plant into its spearhead towards sustainability: it will be the first multinational company worldwide to have zero emissions.

Kas was born as a brand in Vitoria in 1956, by Luis Knörr Elorza, a businessman of German origin who was already involved in the beverage business at that time, and who had the idea of ​​adding orange juice to the soda called The AS and which the family had manufactured since 1926. The added K of the surname Knörr gave rise to one of the most emblematic brands of non-alcoholic soft drinks in Spain and which has survived to this day, with orange, lemon or Bitter Kas drinks. It became a social and sporting reference of the time, for example with the sponsorship of the cycling team, which was born in 1958, disappeared in 1979, although it returned to racing in 1985 and remained until 1988, the date of its definitive disappearance from cycling in route. The success was such that the factory hosted an arrival of the Tour de France in 1977, the previous visit to the recent one in 2023. A runner with advertising for the soft drinks won, José Nazabal.

The family business began to expand and had 12 packaging plants throughout Spain, with its main headquarters in the Gamarra industrial estate in Vitoria. It was in 1974 when it moved to Etxabarri-Ibiña, where the plant is currently located.

At the end of the 80s the company stopped being a family business. The Knörr family gave up majority control to the current BBVA, which in 1991 sold its stake to Pepsico and the multinational became the owner of the company, although maintaining all the brands. The building that housed the office headquarters first of Kas and then of Pepsi in Vitoria went on sale in 2022 for 650,000 euros through the real estate company Cbre to move to the Álava technology park. The old headquarters is still for sale two years later at the same price.

Currently, the Etxebarri-Ibiña plant has a total of 200 employees and six production lines. More than 300 references are made there, including the best-known ones such as Pepsi, Kas, Bitter Kas and 7UP. In its fifty years of history, since it started in 1974, this plant has produced 7,000 million liters of Kas and Pepsi in all its formats, some 365,000 trucks have been shipped and more than 21 million people throughout the country have consumed some of the drinks that are made at the Alava plant, according to the data managed by the company.

Spearhead of Pepsico’s decarbonization

Already without a name and without its own legal identity, the Alava plant is currently positioned as the spearhead of Pepsico’s decarbonization. A milestone that they remembered last month in the commemoration of their 50th anniversary. Already in 2021, the Basque plant was the first to launch the entire Pepsi range in 100% recycled plastic bottles and produce a new cardboard solution for grouping cans, in addition to piloting the change to caps attached to the bottles. Next year it is expected to be the multinational’s first net-zero emissions plant worldwide. A project that involves an investment of five million euros. Since 2019, 27 million have been invested in this plant in relation to sustainability. Zero emissions involve replacing natural gas with renewable electrical energy and achieving 100% electrification of facilities.