Description
Lemonaid is a Hamburg brand of organic, Fairtrade-certified lemonades that gives 5 cents from every bottle sold to its own charity, Lemonaid & ChariTea e.V., which funds projects in the countries where the ingredients grow.
It started in the winter of 2008 in a kitchen in Hamburg’s Karoviertel, and an organic bottler has filled the drinks since 2009. The company is now Lemonaid Beverages AG, and its home page invites people to buy shares. The association was founded in 2010 in St. Pauli; according to Lemonaid it has received more than €14 million so far, and its site lists 36 current projects in eight countries.
There are five flavours: orange, lime, passion fruit, blood orange and ginger. Lemonaid says they contain no flavourings or preservatives. They are also less sweet than most soft drinks: in 2019 the Hamburg-Mitte district office objected that the lime version, with about 6 % sugar, had too little to be sold as “Limonade”, then withdrew the objection. In Stiftung Warentest’s August 2025 test of 29 lemonades, the organic lime had the least sugar of all and was rated “befriedigend” (satisfactory), according to a summary of the results. The drinks are sold in organic shops, drugstores such as Rossmann, cafés and an online shop.
Strengths
- Each bottle carries the EU organic logo and the Fairtrade mark, and 5 cents of its price goes to the association, which has been the rule since 2010.
- It has far less sugar than cola or classic lemonade, and was the least sweet of the 29 drinks Stiftung Warentest tested in 2025.
- The charity is a separate registered association with its own website, which lists the projects and the countries where they run.
Weaknesses
- The €14 million total and the project lists come from Lemonaid and its association; their pages give different project counts and no independent audit was found.
- It is still a sweetened soft drink in a bottle shipped across Germany, and some shops sell it in single-use bottles.
- The newest dated news on the brand’s site was from April 2025 when checked, and prices and deposit rules are only in the online shop.
Who it is for
People in Germany who buy soft drinks for a café, an office or a party and want a less sweet, organic one whose sales fund projects in the growing countries.
Sources
- Lemonaid: home, about us, lemonades, legal notice; Lemonaid & ChariTea e.V.: who we are (checked November 2026)
- Stiftung Warentest: Limonaden im Test (8/2025)
- Legal Tribune Online: Ist „Lemonaid“ nicht süß genug?
- Meininger: Lemonaid darf Limonade heißen
- Produkte im Test: Limonade, Stiftung Warentest