Relaunch of a local bottled water.

From   Limited Editions, October 1999.   Free magasine from Bucks Free Press, High Wycome, UK.

You see bottles of water everywhere.   In the office, in lunchboxes, in the car and at the gym.
British consumers last year (1998) spent £415 million on bottled water. That figure is still low compared to our European counterparts, but shows a steady growth of one per cent per annum in recent years.

Our very own local water company Chiltern Hills is a key player in the bottled water game and just this summer launched a new look for the millennium. The bottles, offering sparkling and still water, now sport a much more fluid,   modern design on the label to reflect the company's drive to make even more of an impression on the worldwide water market in the next few years.

David Kearns,   managing director of the company, told me: "Among core users bottled water has become an automatic choice and a way of life. Once it is established within households, bottled water becomes a regular grocery purchase every week. People now recognise water's importance for a healthy diet and realise it is a superior substitute to tap water."

Chiltern Hills is well recognised locally because of the Chiltern connection. But trials of the new labelling further afield showed the company that 75 per cent of people of all ages prefer the new design and 95 per cent of teenagers prefered it, with 70 per cent saying they were more likely to buy it.
But while the labelling is undoubtedly important in that it can fail or succeed in attracting shoppers to pick up the product in the first place, spit is the bottle's contents which are making Chiltern Hills a household name. Despite the company's recent lack of focus, Chiltern Hills is a key player in the UK market, coming fifth in the league of the top 12 companies by litre sales.

The water is a significant source of calcium, while being low in sodium.   These are natural qualities picked up from the chalky Chilter Hills. The average level of calcium in other bottled waters is 42.6 mg per litre, whereas Chiltern Hills has 104mg/lt.   The average sodium level (ie salt) in other brands is 13.3 compared to Chiltern Hills' 8. "The Chiltern Hills water has been naturally filtered through chalk for around 50 years, emerging 300ft down in the 90-million-year-old chalk strata," explained David. "Every two litres of our mineral water provides 25 per cent of the daily recommended calcium intake which is essential for healthy bones and teeth, prevents osteoporosis and helps lower the blood pressure. We are hoping to drive this message home with a new quality logo on the product boasting they are high in calcium and low in sodium".

Chiltern Hills Natural Mineral Water is an independent family-owned company which has been bottling water from its plant at Ashridge National Trust Estate on the Bucks/Herts border at Aldbury since 1983. It was the first English water to be accredited Natural Mineral Water status,   in 1985.
But it might never have appeared on our shelves if timber miller Denis Ward had'nt visited a supermarket one day and noticed bottles of a certain French water being stocked. He realised he had mineral water on his estate which was only being used for the animals on the farm and decided to investigate the possibilities of bottling the water on his land. At that stage he had no way of knowing how extensive the source was, but he soon found out. The rest, as they say, is history.

Bottled water sales across the UK increased by a whopping 63 percent between 1993 and 1998 which in real terms meant the public consumed 945 million litres last year. It is still a long way from the daily recommended intake of 3 litres per person, but it is a move in the right direction for water companies.
Bottled water drinking is still much more popular in London and the south-east than in the north of the country, possibly because of the difference in taste of tap waters from region to region. Research has also earmarked the typical bottled water drinker as being between 15-18 or 35-44, female and from an AB or C household.

There are three different kinds of bottled water: natural mineral water, spring and table water.
Natural mineral water is bottled at source and has no treatments or additives. The source is tightly regulated and the water has to undergo two years of controlled testing before accreditation. The other difference is the mineral water, such as the Chiltern Hills water, has to print the mineral composition on the label and only one product can be taken from that souce.
Spring water may sound fresh, but it can be of indeterminate quality and consistency. It does not have to be bottled at source and can be treated with chemicals. Many brands can be taken from the one source.
Table water can be simply filtered tap water. spIt is covered under the tap water regulations, but basically can be the same stuff that comes out of your tap at home passed through a filter (similar to those you can buy for your home).