SodaStream to shut West Bank factory

ISRAELI company SodaStream, hit by calls for a global boycott, said this week it was shutting a controversial factory in a West Bank settlement as it announced a 9% fall in sales.

The manufacturer of an appliance for making fizzy drinks at home, which was embroiled in a row earlier this year involving actress Scarlett Johansson, said it would relocate the factory by the end of next year.

SodaStream said the plant closure would “improve operational efficiency” of a group that has been listed on the New York stock exchange since 2010.

A factory in northern Israel will also close, it said on its website.

The manufacturer claims its factory in the Jewish settlement of Mishor Adumim in the occupied West Bank is a “model of integration”, employing 500 Palestinians, 450 Arab Israelis and 350 Israeli Jews on the same salaries and with the same social security benefits.

Palestinian employees “receive salaries four or five times that of the average wage in the territories controlled by Palestinian authorities”, it said.

But the factory has been the focus of calls by Palestinian activists for a worldwide boycott.

The row became news in January when Johansson quit as an ambassador for UK charity Oxfam after a dispute over her ad campaign for SodaStream.

In one of the televised adverts, Johansson told audiences that they could drink SodaStream with a clear environmental conscience since the brand’s plastic bottles are designed for reuse.

The actress came in for fierce criticism from the international BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) campaign, which pushes for a ban on Israeli products for “profiting from occupation”.

A spokesman for Johansson said she parted company with Oxfam due to a “fundamental difference of opinion” over the boycott. She still appears on the SodaStream website.

Earlier this year, SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum acknowledged that Mishor Adumim, once a munitions factory, had become “a thorn in the side” of the firm.

SodaStream made no reference to the Johansson controversy on Wednesday. “We are launching a comprehensive plan to put the firm back on track,” Birnbaum said. — AFP