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Drinking Water

WaterCoolersDirect partners with InSinkErator

Posted on by Sally

WaterCoolersDirect, a UK-​based online water cooler supply business, has been appointed as a full service distributor for the InSinkErator brand of boiling taps across the UK.

InSinkErator, part of the Emerson Appliance Solutions group, is a major name in sink appliance solutions with its range of waste disposal units and steaming hot water taps.

Delivering up to 100 cups of 98°c filtered water per hour, these instant hot water taps offer safe, filtered hot water, as well as cold with some models, and use less energy than a 40 watt light bulb.

Ashley Munden, sales and marketing director at InSinkErator, said: “InSinkErator UK has benefited from a consumer desire for efficient appliances in the kitchen, both across food waste disposers and steaming hot water taps, and we have capitalised on this.”

Fred Cairns Palmer, managing director at WaterCoolersDirect, said: “Our business is built on representing leading brands. The InSinkErator hot taps offer excellent environmental credentials being 18%+ less expensive to operate than a standard electric kettle when heating water.

“As the trend for breakroom products increases in the UK, more and more companies want to keep their employees productive and optimise office time. Hot taps are instant and research shows that after just the 11th boiled cup, you are saving money with a hot tap.  We see an exciting 12 months ahead as breakrooms become the vending areas of the future.”

Virgin hires Saatchi & Saatchi for water launch

Posted on by Sally

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group has appointed advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi to launch its new water brand.  The new brand is a result of Virgin’s deal with the Israeli food and water giant Strauss Group last year.

The Virgin-​Strauss Water venture will market, sell and service water products, including home water dispensers and office water coolers. The water will be purified using Strauss’ environmentally friendly technology.  The brand will launch in the UK this year with plans to expand across Europe.

Virgin Green Fund, the Virgin Group’s investment company in the renewable energy and resource efficiency sectors, invested $7.5m in the first stage at the end of 2011, with Strauss Water investing $2.5m.

After the initial investment, Strauss Water owned 58% of the joint project and the Virgin investment fund, 42%.

US-​based mains-​fed water cooler company Quench is also a Virgin Green Fund company.

Momentum grows for UK bottled water

Posted on by Sally

Zenith’s 2012 UK Bottled Water market report, its 21st annual edition, shows that overall volume sales grew by 2.1% in 2011 to 2,099 million litres.

Retail sizes under 10 litres, which accounted for 87% of the total, advanced by 3.0%. In contrast, the bottled water cooler market declined by 3.1%, due to continued challenging economic conditions and loss of business to point of use coolers which use mains water supplies.

“After 20 years of dramatic growth, bottled water was held back from 2006 by a combination of a switch in types of water coolers, poor summers, the economic downturn and environmental concerns”, explained Zenith chairman Richard Hall. “Now, bottled water is back on the move again, driven by its key benefits of healthy hydration, on-​the-​go convenience, competitive pricing and environmental measures from lightweighting to recycled content in packaging.”

“Consumers continue to value the bottled water offering. With no calories or sugar, bottled water is providing consumers with a healthy hydration choice at a time when there is a continued consumer and media focus on health and wellbeing. We have seen particularly strong growth in the impulse channel as consumers look for convenient and healthy hydration on-​the-​go”, commented Natural Hydration Council general manager Kinvara Carey.

Amongst other findings of the 2012 Zenith report:

  • Still water was responsible for 86% of 2011 volume and sparkling water 14%.
  • Natural mineral water took a 62% share, spring water 30%, purified water 2% and other waters 6%.
  • Locally produced waters accounted for 78% and imported waters 22%.
  • Bottled water coolers fell to 13% of consumption, compared with a peak of 22% in 2003.
  • Packaged retail volumes are now at a record level.
  • The most popular retail pack size is 50cl, followed by 2 litre and 1.5 litre.
  • The top five retail brands by volume are Evian, Highland Spring, Buxton, Volvic and Nestlé Pure Life.

Zenith forecasts anticipate continuing moderate overall growth, taking sales up a further 14% to 2,400 million litres in 2016.

Water cooler market remains stable, BWCA hears

Posted on by Sally

Market volumes for water coolers are holding steady, despite difficult market conditions, delegates to the industry’s annual conference have heard.

Addressing the BWCA’s Water Cooler Industry Annual Conference, whose theme was ‘Competing To Win’, Michael Barnett delivered a presentation that revealed, whilst the overall market was stable, figures showed an increased bias in favour of Point-​of-​Use (POU) coolers as against Bottled Water Coolers (BWC). However this decline for BWCs is expected to slow over the coming year

Market value in 2009 was £160m for the whole cooler market, a decline from the peak in 2005 but still showing some £20m growth taking as a whole the decade since 2001.

The migration of customers to POU systems was driven by financial need, environment perceptions and health & safety concerns about lifting bottles. The public sector in particular has driven change for this mix of reasons. However, average pricing for both cooler types has declined in the past 3–4 years and this has helped the market’s stability.

Barnett said: “The key drivers are expected to remain flat but there are some issues that may affect the market. One of these is that the UK population still under-​estimates how much water should be consumed. Weather is also a factor as are environmental impact concerns.”

Looking to the purchasing criteria employed by customers, Barnett said that the four top criteria were delivery, price, cooler quality and ability to supply both POU and BWC systems. Service and sanitisation were also important factors.

“Companies should heed the fact that the main reason for quitting the market was service disappointment. Get prices and service levels right, including efficient delivery, convert non-​users and the market should grow,” predicted Barnett.

Higher growth rates, higher revenue, lower quit rates and lower operating costs were the key drivers of the out-​performing companies, the research showed. Mr Barnett added that “industry consolidation was likely to continue and whilst customers will continue to demand strong service while maintaining downward pressure on margins”.

Will ‘One industry, one voice’ work for the cooler industry?

Posted on by Sally

At the recent British Water Cooler Association event in the UK, it was revealed that the industry is looking at merging its bottled and mains-​fed cooler associations to form one coherent voice for the industry.

Addressing the one-​day conference, chairman John Dundon stated that there was now a renewed demand for one association: “We need one industry voice going forward and we are in preliminary discussions to try to achieve this before the end of 2012.”

Back in 2006 it was becoming apparent that the two industries (bottled water coolers and mains-​fed coolers) were moving closer together. At that time, manufacturers were beginning to develop both types of machines. Distributors, keen to offer their services to a wide variety of customers, were also developing both arms of the business. Mains-​fed coolers represented a small but fast-​growing segment of the market.

Today, in the UK at least, the split is now closer to 50/​50 and mains-​fed machines are still making headway.

It will be interesting to see what the priorities will be for one association, which will need to cover a wide range of issues, not least boosting the healthy hydration message to consumers while maintaining excellent customer service and product innovation for increasingly sophisticated customers both in the office and home.

NHC secures ASA ruling on Strauss Water

Posted on by Sally

The Advertising Standards Authority has today upheld a complaint made by the National Hydration Council against a series of Strauss Water advertisements for the T6 filtration machine.

The ASA found the following claims misleading:

1 ‘Plastic water bottles present risks to health’.

Bottled water is sold in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles that do not contain BPA, and levels of antimony in bottled water are well below the legally permitted level. The ASA could not find evidence that plastic bottles presented the risks to health described in the ad, and said, ‘the claims related to health risks were very strong and denigrated bottled water’.

2 The environmental benefit of using the T6 compared to bottled water.

The T6 is manufactured and assembled abroad. The ad made repeated claims about the product’s environmental benefits compared to bottled water, including text that stated ‘the T6 did not harm the planet’ and that consumers who used it could have a ‘clear conscience’.The ASA found no evidence to support this.

3 ‘A 1-​litre bottle of water needs three litres … ’

The ASA didn’t think there was adequate evidence to substantiate this objective claim.

4 ‘The cleanest, purest water you’ve ever tasted’.

The ASA considered these claims were misleading and couldn’t be substantiated.

Kinvara Carey, general manager of the Natural Hydration Council, said: “We strongly support the ASA ruling that Strauss Water’s advertising has misled the public about bottled water. Naturally sourced bottled water is one of the healthiest ways to hydrate, and in fact one of the most environmentally friendly soft drinks produced.

“At a time when the average Briton drinks less than one glass of water a day, all forms of water consumption should be encouraged, and it is irresponsible of Strauss Water to use such outlandish and inaccurate denigration in a bid to promote their filtration machines.”

A fun night out for some – the International Water Tasting Competition

Posted on by Sally

More than 150 people watched at the 22nd annual International Water Tasting Competition in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia on Saturday night as eleven media judges spent hours tasting and selecting from among 77 waters sourced in twenty states and nine foreign countries. There were 32 municipal waters from a dozen states, Canada and South Korea.

A pair of Canadian waters took home the gold as both best tap water in the world, and best bottled water. Greenwood, British Columbia won the coveted best tasting tap water in the world with St Henry, Ohio winning best in the USA. The remaining places were claimed by American waters.

The water tasting’s first Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to marketing guru and water executive James M Stevens, widely credited with ‘inventing’ the bottled water segment of the US beverage industry when he introduced Perrier to America in the 1970s.

Not only did bottled water come literally from all over the globe to compete including Argentina, Japan, Bosnia and Belgium but Bulgarians, Koreans and Chinese accompanied their water entries to the event.

UK bottled water records strong performance in 2011

Posted on by Sally

The UK bottled water industry reported substantial growth in 2011 with a 2.8% increase in annual sales, accumulating a total of over 1.8 billion litres volume sold.

This increase marks positive times in a tough economic climate for manufacturers, responsible for an estimated 2,000 employees, with further reports showing that approximately half of all GB households are buying into the bottled water category and doing so more frequently than in 2010.

This performance has also influenced the soft drink category, with bottled water contributing 20.9% of the volume growth in soft drinks in 2011. In retail terms alone, bottled water has a 14.9% volume share of soft drinks annually – with a seasonal peak of 16.4% in the summer as shoppers opt for immediate forms of hydration when the temperature rises.

Kinvara Carey, general manager of the Natural Hydration Council, commented: “Consumers continue to value the naturally-​sourced bottled water offering. With no calories or sugar, naturally sourced bottled water is providing consumers with a healthy hydration choice at a time when there is a continued consumer and media focus on health and wellbeing. We have seen particularly strong growth in the impulse channel as consumers look for convenient and healthy hydration on-​the-​go.”