Bakers turned bottlers
Faygo traces its beginnings to 1907 in Detroit, Michigan, where it was founded by Ben and Perry Feigenson, brothers who had recently immigrated from Russia. Originally operating as Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works, the pair had been trained as bakers, and that background shaped the company from the outset. When they turned to making soft drinks, they drew on the frosting recipes they knew, adapting the flavors of their baking into carbonated beverages. This unusual origin gave Faygo’s earliest products a distinctive sweetness and character rooted in the confectioner’s craft rather than the pharmacist’s.
The brothers began with a small operation and a modest range. Their first sodas included fruit-forward flavors such as fruit punch, strawberry, and grape, tastes that translated naturally from the frostings they had made. In the early days the business was decidedly local: the sodas were delivered around Detroit by horse-drawn wagon, and a single bottle sold for just a few cents, with a pair available for a nickel. That affordability and neighborhood distribution helped the young brand build a loyal following in its home city.
From Feigenson to Faygo
For its first years the company carried the founders’ surname, but by the early 1920s the brothers recognized the value of a shorter, catchier name. In 1921 they adopted “Faygo,” a trimmed and simplified version of Feigenson that was easier to remember and better suited to building a brand. The change proved shrewd, giving the growing enterprise a distinctive identity that would carry it through the following century.
The 1920s also saw the range expand beyond its original fruit flavors. New products such as Rock & Rye, a vanilla-and-cherry-tinged classic, along with vanilla and seltzer varieties, joined the lineup during this period. This willingness to keep adding flavors became a defining trait of the company, and over the decades Faygo would develop one of the broadest and most varied portfolios of any regional soda maker, a catalog that came to include a wide array of fruit sodas, cream sodas, and specialty flavors.
A Midwest institution
Faygo grew steadily from a Detroit bottler into a beloved fixture across the Midwest and beyond. Its identity remained tightly bound to Detroit and to Michigan, where it became a hometown favorite and a source of local pride, but its appeal spread through the surrounding region and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic. The brand cultivated an approachable, working-class image, its affordability and generous variety making it a staple of family refrigerators and corner stores throughout its heartland.
Among its many flavors, several achieved iconic status. Redpop, a bright red fruit soda, became one of the brand’s signature offerings and a nostalgic touchstone for many who grew up with it, while Rock & Rye endured as a distinctive classic found on few other soda shelves. The sheer breadth of Faygo’s range, spanning dozens of flavors, is itself part of its charm, offering an assortment that larger national brands rarely match and reinforcing its reputation as a soda for every taste.
Ownership and legacy
Faygo remained under the ownership of the Feigenson family and their successors for much of the twentieth century before becoming part of a larger corporate structure. In 1987 the brand was acquired by National Beverage Corporation, a move that broadened its distribution and resources while allowing it to keep the regional identity that had always been its strength. Under that ownership Faygo has continued as a distinct brand rather than being folded into a generic lineup, preserving its heritage flavors and its strong local associations.
The brand has also become known well beyond its products, tied over the years to Detroit sports, local radio, and a memorable advertising jingle that many in the region can still recall, all of which deepened its standing as a piece of hometown culture rather than merely a line of sodas on a shelf.
More than a century after two baker brothers first bottled soda inspired by their frostings, Faygo endures as a genuine cultural institution of the Midwest. It has become woven into the identity of Detroit, celebrated in local lore and remembered warmly across generations of drinkers who associate its flavors with childhood and home. Its long survival, the remarkable variety of its offerings, and its deep regional roots have earned it a lasting place in the story of American soft drinks, standing as one of the great examples of a homegrown regional soda that grew into an icon while never losing touch with the city that created it.
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