Beverages consist mostly of water, yet they are often transported over long distances, temporarily stored, and ultimately distributed in offices or other facilities with significant effort. This is where Redrink comes in. The Munich startup takes a different approach: Instead of bottling drinks centrally and then transporting them, they are produced right where they are consumed.
“Why transport drinks over hundreds of kilometers when you can produce them right where they are consumed?”
is how co-founder Eberhard Harnoncourt describes the company’s core idea.
The concept is primarily aimed at offices, universities, hotels, as well as retirement and nursing homes. Anywhere many people need to be supplied with drinks on a daily basis.
Cloud-connected drink dispensers automate ordering and service processes
Technically, Redrink combines filtered tap water with natural essences. Users can set directly on the dispenser whether they would like their drink still or sparkling, as well as adjust the flavor intensity.
For companies, however, the focus is less on the drink itself and more on the underlying infrastructure. The dispensers are fully cloud-connected and continuously provide data on fill levels, maintenance needs, and inventory.
This allows reorders and service calls to be organized automatically. According to the founders, many previously manual tasks for office management and facility teams – such as beverage orders, inventory management, or delivery coordination – are eliminated.
“We replace heavy lifting and ordering chaos with a fully automated process,”
says co-founder Adrian Beissel.
Personalized drinks as the next development step
While flavor intensity as well as still or sparkling water can already be individually selected today, Redrink is working on a significantly higher degree of personalization, as the two founders reveal in an interview with Munich Startup. Employees shouldn’t just grab a drink from the fridge, but be able to customize it individually.
Plans include allowing users in the future to combine different flavors and complement their drinks with functional additives such as electrolytes or caffeine. The offering is to be supplemented by personal user profiles in which individual drink settings are saved. Looking ahead, an app will also track drinking habits, document hydration behavior, and—depending on the weather or time of year—recommend suitable drinks.
In the long term, this is intended to evolve into a digital beverage platform that goes far beyond traditional water dispensers.
Customers range from startups to Deutsche Bahn
Redrink has now been active on the market for around two and a half years. Its customers include companies such as Check24, Celonis, and Deutsche Bahn, as well as several five-star hotels and care facilities. In parallel with its growth in Germany, the company is currently expanding into Switzerland and Austria.
Sustainability through decentralized production
Another component of the business model is the reduction of transport and packaging effort. Since the drinks are produced directly on site, large parts of traditional delivery logistics are eliminated.
According to Redrink, the use of its systems has already saved more than 1.3 million single-use bottles to date. This figure is expected to rise significantly in the future.
