Dec 18, 2009
Antipodes dips toes in export markets
by Graeme Kennedy [NBR]Whakatane premium bottled water company Antipodes is seeding offshore markets with its natural product to gauge interest in export sales.
Chief executive Simon Woolley said that although New Zealand and Australia were its fast-growing customer bases with about 1.5 million units sold last year, Antipodes had put small amounts in Asia, Europe and the US.
“We will see if the brand has international appeal and focus on markets as they show promise,” Mr Woolley said. “Australia is growing brilliantly although we are just scratching the surface with about 600,000 bottles last year and while we have only a small distributor in the US our water is in some really premium establishments there."
“Antipodes is the only New Zealand water with EU certification
— the highest standard in the world — and in 2006 it beat 109 entries to win a US award as the world’s best sparkling water. We are also the first premium water company in the world to be certified carbon-neutral.
“It is New Zealand’s only glass-bottled water and is available only in restaurants although we will soon begin doing some selective retail as consumers are very loyal to the brand but find it difficult to get.”
Antipodes topped the water sector in The National Business Review’s monthly Exciting Companies series with a 70% rating in surveys conducted by strategic business consultancy New River. It was followed by Smart Membrane Solutions, Just Water, Promax and Life Water (see table).
Mr Woolley spent many years in the New Zealand hospitality and restaurant business before he and five partners started Antipodes six years ago.
“There was no water in glass bottles then and good restaurants would not serve water at the table in plastic so they imported products in glass such as Evian, Pelligrino and Perrier,” he said.
“I felt that with tourism growing and fine food and wine now part of New Zealand’s contemporary culture we had a simple idea which had been overlooked. We thought that finding a water source in New Zealand would be easy but getting it out of the ground where it doesn't have to be filtered or processed is like striking oil."
“But we found our product in Whakatane where a kiwifruit farmer was drilling for well water to use as irrigation and hit an aquifer, artesian water which came out at high pressure giving it natural filtration."
“We do nothing to the product except add CO2 to the sparkling variety — it is pure, living water from an amazing and infinite source.”
Mr Woolley said the types of soils and stone water passed through in the filtering process gave it a distinctive taste and a real issue was convincing people to treat it as a serious beverage.
“People won’t drink bad wine but they don’t think about water and its taste. They just wolf it down,” he said. “If they held it in their mouths for a few minutes and concentrated on the flavour they would be staggered by what they were drinking.”
Antipodes’ first Customer was an Auckland restaurant and it is now available in still and sparkling styles at 300 outlets throughout New Zealand. A one litre bottle costs about $10.
Exports to Australia began in 2004 while small shipments went to Spain and Hong Kong the following year and to China and Germany after a new bottling plant was installed last year. Interest has also come from Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.
“We needed the new plant,” Mr Woolley said. “We’d hit the point where we couldn’t grow any further without increasing capacity”
BOTTLED WATER THE ONLY GROWTH AREA
Consumers’ drinking water remains the only growth sector in the water industry as others, including infrastructure, irrigation and water for businesses are still struggling in the economic downturn.The New River survey found conditions matched respondents’ activities with 45% reporting difficult or very difficult trading and 30% buoyant or very buoyant.
It said consumer bottled water growth was driven by a greater awareness and demand for higher-quality product and a switch from soft drinks and juices by health-conscious and obese consumers.
Alternatives to home tap drinking water such as filtration systems and tanks were also benefiting from the trend.
New River said businesses had cut expenditure on office drinking water but it was beginning to increase again.
Infrastructure and environmental work mainly driven by councils had also suffered, it said, while housing development was also down.
The survey found lower capital expenditure in the rural sector had hit irrigation expenditure although some respondents expected a recovery next year.
Business conditions
Current business conditions in the WATER SectorVery buoyant =10%
Buoyant =20%
Neutral =25%
Difficult =40%
Very difficult =5%
Top 7 Water companies
Rank / Company/ Excitement rating1 Antipodes 70.0
2 Smart Membrane Solutions 67.0
3 Just Water 65.5
4 Promax 59.0
5 Life Water 51.0
6 NIWA 48.0
7 Water Supply Products 45.9
