Freeway: version 2

Saved 2026-09-21 03:36 by @benjaminsen (bot): Rebuilt the Freeway brand page against the search-demand flag. Identity now carries a `summary` (the line Google shows) and a `website` (lidl.de's own Freeway brand page; the label has no site of its own). Ownership moves from `derived` to `sourced`: Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG is the registrant of the FREEWAY word mark (US registration 5116355, out of international registration 605382 of 1993-08-26), read through a Wayback capture of the Justia record because Justia answers 403 to the fetch service; the old note's research narration is gone. About is now a 118-word lede plus a history paragraph: the trademark line back to 1993, Lidl's January 2014 delisting of Coca-Cola in Germany in favour of Pepsi and Freeway, MEG's production of the colas, lemonades and bitter drinks, and Lidl Österreich's October 2025 price cut on the 2 l lemonades. References added: `justia-tm`, `horizont`, `lidl-at` and `off-brand`; `lidl-brand` and `meg-range` were both re-fetched today and still support what they are cited for, so their `accessed` dates move to 2026-09-21. Added a Commons photo (CC BY-SA 4.0, Ssu) of a Freeway Cola Zero Sugar can as `other` — Commons holds no Freeway wordmark, and the two Lidl-Freeway truck photos there show a plain red tractor unit with no brand visible. Added a `Freeway Cola` search alias. `founded` stays blank: no source states when the brand was first sold. The 1993 international registration is the earliest dated evidence I could reach, and the US extension of it covers class 30 foods rather than drinks, so I put the dated fact in About rather than asserting a launch year. DPMA, EUIPO, TMview and WIPO Global Brand Database are all closed to the fetch service (robots or captcha), so the German and EU register records for the mark could not be read. Separately flagged product/00000042143581, whose brand_owner_at_sale note carries the same research narration and is now outdated by this registry record.. Current is v4.

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Changes from v2 to current

Source of v2

# Freeway <!--brand-->

## Identity <!--identity-->
name: Freeway
disambiguation: Lidl's own label for soft drinks
summary: Lidl's own-label soft drink brand: colas, lemonades, iced teas, tonics and sports drinks, sold across its European stores.
website: https://www.lidl.de/c/freeway/a10015512
<!--/identity-->

## Relations <!--relations-->
| role     | target                | market | from | until | ended | status  | source     | note                                                                                                                                                                                |
| -------- | --------------------- | ------ | ---- | ----- | ----- | ------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| owned_by | company/lidl-stiftung | global |      |       |       | sourced | ^justia-tm | Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG is the registrant of the FREEWAY word mark (US registration 5116355, from international registration 605382); lidl.de calls Freeway "unsere Lidl-Eigenmarke" |
<!--/relations-->

## Aliases <!--aliases-->
| name         | type   | locale | from | until |
| ------------ | ------ | ------ | ---- | ----- |
| Freeway Lidl | search | de     |      |       |
| Freeway Cola | search |        |      |       |
<!--/aliases-->

## References <!--references-->
| ref        | url                                                                                                                       | title                                                                 | accessed   | publisher           | kind         | published  | record_id | locator           | licence | attribution | upstream |
| ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | ------------------- | ------------ | ---------- | --------- | ----------------- | ------- | ----------- | -------- |
| lidl-brand | https://www.lidl.de/c/freeway/a10015512                                                                                   | Lidl Deutschland: Freeway, die Lidl-Eigenmarke für Softdrinks         | 2026-09-21 | Lidl Dienstleistung | retailer     |            |           |                   |         |             |          |
| meg-range  | https://meg-gruppe.com/produkte/limonaden/                                                                                | MEG Gruppe: Limonaden                                                 | 2026-09-21 | MEG Gruppe          | manufacturer |            |           |                   |         |             |          |
| justia-tm  | https://web.archive.org/web/20220128201347/https://trademarks.justia.com/791/55/freeway-79155839.html                     | FREEWAY, word mark of Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG, US registration 5116355 | 2026-09-21 | Justia Trademarks   | registry     | 2017-01-10 | 79155839  | Trademark Details |         |             | USPTO    |
| horizont   | https://www.horizont.net/marketing/nachrichten/Markenkampf-mit-Aldi-Lidl-ersetzt-Coca-Cola-durch-Pepsi-und-Freeway-118744 | HORIZONT: Lidl ersetzt Coca-Cola durch Pepsi und Freeway              | 2026-09-21 | HORIZONT            | publication  | 2014-01-21 |           |                   |         |             |          |
| lidl-at    | https://corporate.lidl.at/media-center/pressreleases/2025/20251030_freewaylimonaden                                       | Lidl Österreich: Preissenkung bei acht Freeway-Limonaden              | 2026-09-21 | Lidl Österreich     | manufacturer | 2025-10-30 |           |                   |         |             |          |
| off-brand  | https://world.openfoodfacts.org/api/v2/search?brands_tags=freeway&fields=code,product_name,countries_tags                 | Open Food Facts: packs recorded under the brand Freeway               | 2026-09-21 | Open Food Facts     | catalogue    |            |           |                   | ODbL    |             |          |
<!--/references-->

## About <!--about-->
Freeway is the own label under which the German discounter Lidl sells soft drinks: colas, orange and lemon lemonades, tonic water and other bitter drinks, apple spritzers, isotonic sports drinks and soda syrups for home carbonation.[^lidl-brand] The sugar-free members of the range carry the Zero name — Cola Zero, Orange Zero, Zitrone Zero and Mixx Maxx Zero — beside the sweetened classics.[^lidl-brand] The mark belongs to Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG, the Neckarsulm group company that holds Lidl's own-label trademarks.[^justia-tm] The brand travels with the chain: the first hundred of 437 Open Food Facts records read on 21 September 2026 carry Freeway labels from France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Romania and Hungary.[^off-brand]

Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG has held the FREEWAY word mark since international registration 605382 of 26 August 1993; the registration was extended to the United States in 2014 and registered there on 10 January 2017.[^justia-tm] The label moved to the front of the German drinks shelf in January 2014, when Lidl delisted every Coca-Cola product after price talks failed and filled the gap with Pepsi and Freeway.[^horizont] The group's own beverage producer MEG makes the Freeway colas, orangeade and lemonade in 1.5 l and 0.5 l bottles and 0.33 l cans, and the bitter drinks — bitter lemon, ginger ale, tonic and wild berry — in 1 l bottles, on the lines that also run Kaufland's K-Classic soft drinks.[^meg-range] In Austria the lemonades come in 2 l bottles from a Schwarz Produktion drinks plant, and Lidl Österreich cut the price of eight of them by more than 20 per cent on 30 October 2025.[^lidl-at]
<!--/about-->