Tomislav Juretić and Igor Zupičić are an entrepreneurial duo from Rijeka behind Monada, the first Croatian craft cola. They created it during the difficult pandemic times when there was no talk of making money with a new drink on the market, and after two years of work and eight months of pause, their Monada received a design facelift – and an improved recipe.
They have invested around 200,000 euros in equipment so far, and will invest another 100,000 euros this winter. The production capacity of their facility, symbolically located in the old industrial Vodovodna Street where a soda factory operated during the Austro-Hungarian era, is currently 150,000 liters, and after the winter investment, it will increase to 500,000.
– We have a 500-liter brewing machine whose process lasts about four hours, an automatic flow carbonator, pressure tanks for product storage, isobaric fillers for bottles and cans, a distillery, a premium juice cooling system, and equipment sanitization to minimize the risk of product infection, and so on. The production is of a closed type, meaning that the product from the beginning of the brewing process to filling is not exposed to external influences. We cannot talk about finances right now because we have just started, but we are already working with specialized craft beverage distributors. In Kvarner, it is Brewtiga, Pomalo in Zagreb, Angry Moose in Čakovec, Crocraft in Split, and soon Mas Plenum – explained Juretić, who started production with Zupičić in May and registered the brands at the beginning of this year.
Blueberries from Gorski Kotar, water from Zvir
From start to finish, claims the Rijeka entrepreneur, it is an authentic product backed by a sincere story. The water used for their drink comes from Zvir, blueberries from a Gorski family farm, and the first Croatian craft cola also includes organic cardamom, lemon juice that is not from concentrate, with a reduced sugar content, which sets them apart from the competition. In addition to the classic Monada, they also produce Monada Cherry with cherry puree and Monada with mango puree.
– The idea for the monad actually came from Pythagoras and Euclid, considering the monad as a numerical unit, while Plato held ideas as monads. In Christianity, a monad is a simple, completely self-contained original bearer of substantial being, but it is also something spiritual, as it possesses the ability to create images and aspirations based on the presented. God was considered the monad of monads, i.e., the infinite monad that created every finite monad. This understanding persisted until Giordano Bruno. Bruno connects the Pythagorean understanding of the monad with Democritus’s idea of atoms. Gottfried Leibniz was the first to develop a systematic teaching about monads (monadology). According to him, a monad is simply a substantial-dynamic being or a center of forces, a subject of experiential states. Our idea of the monad, and we know what that word means in Istria, Kvarner, and Dalmatia (nonsense), came as a completely meaningful explanation for entering a market dominated by the largest global brand, while firmly believing in the possibility that such a product, despite the aforementioned, could be accepted – says Juretić.
When talking about craft products in Croatia, most people associate the term mainly (or exclusively) with beer. Fewer people are familiar with craft distillates, and even fewer are aware that there is a rapidly growing world of craft soda. According to its definition, craft soda or artisanal seltzer is a carbonated drink produced in smaller quantities, made (depending on the product) from mostly natural ingredients, with a reduced sugar content.
