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During World War II in the early 1940s, Germany was in all out war with America and its allies.
Cut off from global trade by Allied blockades, German businesses scrambled to find alternative materials.
Coca-Cola's German branch, unable to import the syrup needed for Coke, created Fanta by fermenting leftover fruit peels with whey.
WWII had cut Germany off from international trade—American ships no longer crossed the Atlantic, and British naval blockades stopped cargo from reaching German ports.
This isolation hit Coca-Cola's German branch hard.
Its manager, Max Keith, couldn't get the syrup needed to make Coke—its secret formula coming from America.
His bottling plants sat idle, and his workers faced unemployment.
Keith had to choose: shut down or create something new.
He gathered his team and gave them a challenge—make a drink using only ingredients they could find in Germany.
They experimented with whey, a dairy byproduct from cheese-making, and apple fiber left over from cider presses.
After multiple attempts, they created a new type of soda that wasn't cola.
Keith named it "Fanta," short for "Fantasie" (German for imagination).
The new drink kept the German bottling plants running throughout the war. Workers kept their jobs, machines kept running, and Coca-Cola’s branch in Germany survived.
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Fanta in Nazi Germany utilized three main local ingredients:
These ingredients were chosen because they remained available in Germany during wartime shortages.
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Fanta got its name from the German word "Fantasie" (fantasy).
The drink's imaginative name offered a small escape from these harsh daily realities.
When resources were scarce and coffee was unavailable, Fanta provided both refreshment and a moment of brightness—a small taste of normalcy in difficult times.
The name itself promised something special, even magical, to people living under wartime restrictions.
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Fanta’s slogan in Nazi Germany was "There's a bit of the best in everyone."
The slogan worked on two levels.
First, it highlighted Fanta's creation story—a drink born when German workers mixed fruit byproducts with whey to create something new from limited ingredients.
Second, it spoke directly to Germans living through wartime shortages, acknowledging their daily acts of resourcefulness.
Beyond selling soda, these words recognized how people adapt when faced with scarcity.
The factory workers who invented Fanta didn't just save their jobs—they proved that creativity can emerge from constraint.
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After World War II ended in 1945, Fanta faced a turning point.
The drink, created by Coca-Cola Germany during wartime shortages, passed into American control under Fanta GmbH.
This opened the doors for The Coca-Cola to expand Fanta to the US and globally.
Fanta seized this opportunity.
Moving beyond its original orange recipe born from wartime restrictions, the company created new flavors for different regions. I
In Japan, they launched Grape Fanta.
In Brazil, Guaraná became a bestseller.
Each new flavor targeted local tastes while maintaining the brand's distinctive fizzy character.
This strategy worked.
By 2000, Fanta had grown from a wartime substitute into one of Coca-Cola’s best selling sodas.
Today, customers in 180 countries grab bottles of Fanta from store shelves, choosing from flavors like strawberry, pineapple, and the original orange.
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