ORMOND BEACH, Fla. -- A startup company hopes to compete with high-end specialty bottled water brands such as Perrier and Voss by bottling rainwater, reported the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Larry Curran, a 64-year-old retired accountant who calls the fledgling rainwater bottling company his labor of love, founded Choose Rain late last year, said the report.
Curran became interested in using rainwater for everything, from swimming to showering to drinking, in 2000, when he heard about a nearby company that was polluting groundwater with chemicals. With other manufacturing plants close to his home, he was interested in avoiding potentially hazardous well water that was on his property.
He remembered a rainwater cistern from his hometown in Indiana and began researching how to make his own collection system at his home. He did so primarily through Internet research.
Neighbors started coming over with five-gallon buckets to get his water. Two years ago, he bottled it and gave it away at a party, where he says everyone loved it. Four months ago, he researched rainwater online and a company called Texas Rain popped up.
"I said if he can do it, I can do it. So at that time I formed a business plan, by the middle of December had a team formed and by the middle of January had my business plan done," he told the newspaper
After a few flat years during the recession, bottled water sales have increased again, up 5.4% in 2011 compared to the previous year, Gary Hemphill, managing director at Beverage Marketing Corp., New York, told the News-Journal. Bottled water is a very competitive market, and big companies tend to win out by producing a high volume with low prices.
"Rainwater would be one way to differentiate the brand," he told the paper.
Bottled water drinkers tend to be educated, young and active, he said. They drink bottled water, not to replace tap water, but as a healthy beverage choice. And private labeling is doing well, Hemphill said.
Curran said he expects half of Choose Rain's business to be private labeling.
There are just three bottled-rainwater plants in the United States, the report said.
Choose Rain's four-person team needs funding from investors to get its equipment for the 12,700-square-foot plant it is planning to open in Ormond Beach, Fla. The Choose Rain team hopes to secure the funding it needs by March so it can start bottling this summer. Until then, it has purchased 32,000 bottles of filtered rainwater from an Austin, Texas-based company called Texas Rain that will be sold in bottles with the Choose Rain label.
Choose Rain officials said they are doing it to get their company's name out while it works on setting up its own commercial rainwater filtering and bottling operation.
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