SANBWA 2021 November - South African National Bottled Water Association

NOVEMBER 2021

THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL BOTTLED WATER ASSOCIATION

Make a Clear Choice Environmental Impact of Water Packaging (Weights are for individual 16.9 oz containers. Other values represent 1 million 16.9 oz bottles, cartons, or cans each)

Resources used to make packaging

PET Water Bottle

Aluminium Can

8.3

19.7

grams

grams

Beverage Carton

21.8 grams

Glass Bottle

300.6 grams

Avg. container weight

50

Ton CO2 eq.

155

Ton CO2 eq.

75

Ton CO2 eq.

383

Ton CO2 eq.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Fossil fuel use

958

GJ consumed

4.6

million gallons

1 342

GJ consumed

7.5

million gallons

1 056

GJ consumed

13.7

million gallons

4 320

GJ consumed

28.9

million gallons

Water use Source: Life Cycle Assessment for the International Bottled Water Association (www.bottledwater.org) by Trayak (2021) which used COMPASS to compare packaging sustainability using the average recycled content for each package as reported by industry/industry association. “Gigajoule (GJ) consumed” is the total quantity of fossil fuel consumer throughout the life cycle. Visual representations of numerical values are not to scale.

P.O. Box 7649, Halfway House, 1685 South Africa | www.sanbwa.org.za | Tel: +27 11 884 5916 | Fax: +27 86 568 4862 | sanbwa@worldonline.co.za

MESSAGE FROM SANBWA’S CHAIRMAN

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have recently been reading of the disappearance of Marmite from our South African shelves. Marmite is made from the spent yeast after beer has been made. Due to the ban of alcohol at the start of Covid-19 and the on-going restrictions of alcohol sales there has been a consequent reduction of beer production, and thus a shortage of spent yeast – and thus no Marmite.

A cornerstone of the capitalist system is a well-oiled supply chain. This supply chain must be slickly managed so that there is minimal disruption and thus, interference of the flow of goods.

Up until the Covid-19 pandemic, the one very strong weapon of the trade unions has been the threat of or actual withholding of labour to gain maximum wages for their members. This can be either through the stoppage of the manufacturing of a component supply to a factory or the stoppage of the supply lines, for example, a dockworkers strike, or any other worker interruption.

Now, added to this are the consequences of Covid-19 and Covid-19 precautions.

Marmite has been mentioned, but there are many others, like the supply of CO2 gas in England being interrupted. A consequence of the shortage of CO2 gas was the threat of a shortage of chicken and other meat because CO2 gas is used during the slaughter of food animals. Not to mention the impact that a shortage of CO2 would have on carbonated drinks.

Then the worldwide shortage of containers for the transport of goods has had untold consequences. This shortage has been due to the Covid-19 precautions imposed at docklands and the consequent delays experienced during loading/ offloading ships. I noted a graph prepared

by Statista of the number of end-to-end transit days from China to USA. In 2019 pre-Covid it was 40 days, at the start of Covid it was 56 days and now it is 73 days.

I have seen the impact of this shortage of containers on my cousins who are export apple and grape farmers. They battled to get reefers (refrigerated containers) to get their product to the European and other markets.

There was an unconfirmed rumour that many reefers were being diverted to transport other non-refrigerated goods.

However, just as I was getting depressed about the ongoing hammering of the capitalist system, I read the following comment on the communist system: If the communists were given management of the Sahara Desert, nothing would happen for 50 years, and then there would be a shortage of sand.

This joke/commentary has been attributed to the conservative magazine editor and commentator William F. Buckley and also attributed to American economist Milton Friedman.

Well done to Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa, who received a Gold Award in SAPRO’s Recycled Product of the Year 2021 awards for its Bonaqua bottle.

Hearty congratulations to aQuellė!.

At Zenith Global’s Water Drinks Award, aQuellė’s newly launched ViV Power and

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Sports Drinks range scored big-time. Quote from the company’s Nico Bosman, “As a proudly South African brand, our ViV Power and Sports Drinks Range has scooped gold at the 17th Global Water Drinks Awards!

The new drinks range was a finalist in three categories and winner of the Best New Brand award out of 165 entries from across the world.”

Yours in quality, John Weaver, Chairman SANBWA

Ripples & Waves

500ml PET bottle

the most sustainable option for packaged water

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study conducted by Trayak LLC, a packaging design and manufacturing consultancy based in the USA, has highlighted that the most sustainable option for packaged water is the 500ml PET bottle.

Using its independent and sciencebased software platform and Comparative Packaging Assessment (COMPASS) methodology, Trayak LLC conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) of four different industry average packaging formats – the PET water bottle, an aluminum can, a beverage carton and a glass bottle.

According to the report (read the executive summary here), the packaging systems were analysed according to seven different environmental impact categories and a detailed breakdown provided for fossil fuel usage, GHG emissions and water usage. The study was commissioned by the USA’s International Bottled Water Association (IBWA).

Critical to its engagement with Trayak was collecting data for all of the packaging formats and establishing a reliable standard structure and packaging system for each. Within the LCA, the materials and processes were able to be modelled with industry average data from the Ecoinvent

database. This is the world’s leading LCI database delivering transparency and consistency. It provides well documented process data for thousands of products, helping companies and individuals make truly informed choices about their environmental impact. The study also considered the likelihood that each packaging type and material format will be recycled, landfilled or incinerated based on the current infrastructure in the USA. After reading the survey, South African Bottled Water Association CEO, Charlotte Metcalf, said that the LCA results of the comparison between the five industry average water containers shows the PET water bottle as the least environmentally impactful option, and therefore the preferred container for packaged water.

“The 500ml PET water bottle produces the lowest environmental impact across the seven indicators measured, including fossil fuel use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water use,” she said.

“The beverage carton was the second least impactful package across many of the seven indicators. However, in South Africa, we must consider that the recycling stream for this type of container is very limited.

Most beverage cartons end up in our

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landfills because there are very few recycling plants with the technology to recycle them.

“The glass bottle, which is an increasingly less used format in South Africa, was the most environmentally impactful container within this LCA study across six of the seven indicators calculated.

“While we haven’t replicated this study in South Africa, we have no reason to believe the outcome would be any different. Our message to South African consumers is clear – Water, in all its forms, is a vital component of our diet as well as the healthiest beverage option for societies plagued by diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Bottled water is the best packaged beverage option for the environment; it has the lightest environmental footprint of all packaged beverages and like other containers – plastic or otherwise – you use every day in your home, bottled water bottles are reusable and recyclable – they are not single-use products. Importantly, by recycling them after reusing them, you reduce their environmental footprint by 25%. That, too, is a major step in the right direction to reducing plastic waste. People, everywhere, just have to change their behaviour and take that step, said Metcalf.

Ripples & Waves Beverage water footprints - unpacked During World Water Week (23 -28 August), SANBWA asked consumers to consider if their beverage of choice is a “fair and smart use of the world’s fresh water” – to quote the landing page of the Water Footprint Network’s website.

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reated in 2002 by Arjen Hoekstra, the water footprint helps people understand how their consumption choices are affecting natural resources.

It measures, according to the Water Footprint Network, the amount of water used to produce each of the goods and services we use. It can be measured for a single process, such as growing rice, for a product, such as a pair of jeans, for the fuel we put in our car or for an entire multinational company. The water footprint can also tell us how much water is being consumed by a particular country – or globally – in a specific river basin or from an aquifer.

The Water Footprint Network and Hoekstra have developed a product gallery to graphically show consumers the volume of water consumed to produce the goods they consume.

These values are based on global averages over a ten-year period, which means the same product will have a different water footprint depending on where, when and how it was produced.

Taking into account the direct and indirect water use of a process, product, company or sector and including water consumption and pollution throughout the full production cycle from the supply chain to the end-user, this product gallery shows that the global average water footprints for five different beverages:

a standard cup of tea (250ml)............ 30l a glass of milk (250ml)........................ 255l a cup of coffee (250ml)...................... 130l a glass of beer (250ml)....................... 298l a glass of wine (125ml)....................... 110l The ‘water cost’ to make a litre of each beverage would therefore be: a litre of tea..................................... 120l a litre of milk.................................... 900l a litre of coffee................................ 520l a litre of beer................................... 1 192l a litre of wine................................... 880l The ‘water cost’ of the beverages on the Water Footprint Network expressed as ratios would be: tea ............................................ 1:120 milk ............................................. 1:900 coffee .......................................... 1:520 beer ........................................... 1: 1 192 wine ........................................... 1:880 But what about bottled water?

South African National Bottled Water Association’s Chairman, John Weaver, says the bottled water production of its members in South Africa is an extremely water efficient business in that it takes only 1.7l of water to make 1l of bottled water.

“The SANBWA measurement is a simple measurement,” says Weaver. “Water from the

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Ripples & Waves borehole or spring coming into the bottling plant is measured with a water metre. This is a requirement by both SANBWA and by the Department of Water Affairs, who grants the licences our members need to bottle water.

The water used from a municipal source is also measured and included in the ‘water coming in’ total. This would include all water used for washing trucks, flushing the toilet and making coffee.

“The number of litres of bottled water leaving the plant is also on record. The average ratio between the two – ‘water sold’ to ‘water coming in’ is 1l sold for every 1.7l coming into the plant, or 1:1.7.” This ratio is the average of its members only and there are member plants that achieve ratios of as low as 1:1.3 – 1:1.4 by recycling their bottle rinse water, says Weaver.

“We know that our measurement doesn’t take into account the amount of water used to make the PET or glass bottles the water is bottled in, nor the truck that transports it or the water usage of the store in which it is sold. But neither do the water footprints quoted above.

“In the packaged beverage industry, we acknowledge that the water footprint to produce a 1l glass bottle weighing 800g remains constant regardless of whether that glass bottle contains water or wine, and that the water footprint to produce a 500ml PET bottle of a certain thickness remains constant regardless of whether it contains water, a carbonated soft drink, an energy drink, iced tea or flavoured milk.

“It’s very complicated to calculate the full environmental impact of a product from production to packaging to distribution and so on – there are people who do it. We might invest in an outsourced formal study, but our aim is to first get producers to measure and set goals for improvement.”

SANBWA members’ collective environmental vision is to improve members’ environmental stewardship. This covers four areas including: 1) Water: Ensuring effective water management from source to shelf, including requirements for source protection, efficient water usage and responsible effluent practices.

2) Solid waste: Reducing, re-using, recycling all solids involved in the production and distribution of their products.

3) Energy: Promoting the efficient use of energy and fuels.

4) Post-distribution recycling: Supporting municipal and consumer initiatives for recycling packaging and bottles.

Every year, SANBWA’s third party and independent auditing body – NSF – audits members to ensure that their source, bottling facility, final product and every aspect of their bottling process adheres to SANBWA’s stringent standards.

The SANBWA audit consists of a desk study performed by specialists and an onsite audit performed by an experienced auditor, and requires

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a total of 24 man-hours of in-depth inspection and evaluation. The source is inspected physically every year and test results are scrutinised.

Compliance is achieved by an overall score of at least 85% and 100% for critical and fundamental requirements.

Only then are members bottlers allowed to display the SANBWA logo on their bottled water products.

Ripples & Waves Resetting expectations for consumers and commerce

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n his presentation Resetting expectations for consumers and commerce delivered at Zenith’s Global Water Drinks Congress during October this year, Kantar’s Andrew Walker said Covid-19 lockdowns worldwide had caused people to start living differently, shopping differently and eating differently.

As a result, they started spending more time at home, shopping more efficiently and developing new consumption moments. While lockdowns have largely been lifted for a while in many countries, these new behaviours have settled, but at new levels. For example, time spent at home is still inflated by at least 5%.

Staying in has created more in-home consumption occasions, particularly during the day and this behaviour change has largely remained so that the weekly consumption occasions for food and drinks has increased from 19.9 (MAT Q1 for 2019) to 22.5 (MAT Q1 for 2021 of 22.5). The impact of these behaviours has simplified the choices that we all make when it comes to the five ways we buy our food and drink, Walker said, these being defined as large grocery shops (>20 items), small grocery shops (up to 20 items), retail on the go, visiting a café or restaurant and takeaway/delivery. As a result of this simplification, people are spending less, as GB year-on-year spend on food and nonalcoholic drinks, data from FMCG and OOH purchase panels shows. Pre-pandemic spend (52 weeks to 23 Feb 2020) equated to £137billion versus post-pandemic spend

(52 weeks to 2021) of £128 billion. That’s a considerable loss.

The losing segments were small grocery shops (up to 20 items) that lost £3, retail on the go was down by £4, visiting a café or restaurant dropped by £24, while large grocery shops (>20 items) increased by £15 and takeaway/delivery by £6 per household.

The research also showed that in-home consumption of mineral water is more meal orientated. Walker suggested that helping consumers to make the connection between water and what they’re eating will be a crucial growth lever.

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Ripples & Waves

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MEMBER NEWS

aQuellé ViV shapes up by winning global award aQuellé is the proud global award winner for the latest edition to its range, ViV power and sports drinks.

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inners of the Zenith Global 17th Global Water Drinks Award were announced in a virtual ceremony in September with ViV taking the honours in the category of Best New Brand.

The industry’s only Global Drinks Award is designed to celebrate excellence and innovation across every category of the packaged water industry. Winning the award affords the brand and product recognition on an international scale.

The all-new ViV power and sports drinks range by aQuellé is designed to optimise active lifestyles within an African context. It consists of four unique and energising flavours: ViV Power is packed with guarana and natural caffeine, while the Pineberry, Gardenfruit and Kalamansi sports drinks revive with added

electrolytes and B vitamins. All are made with pure natural spring water.

The unique customised bottle, designed to fit ergonomically into the drinker’s hand, is blown in-line. With ultimate grip and aesthetic appeal, it is dramatically different to any other bottle in this market. Two full vertical microperforation lines inserted into the sleeve allow for the release of steam during application.

The addition of a third perforation line, an industry first, enables easy removal of the sleeve to support the recycling of the PET bottle post-consumer usage. This emphasises aQuellé’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

The new ViV range has been making its way into trade since August 2021 and can be found in leading retail

outlets and forecourts. aQuellé natural spring water, including its latest brand ViV, is bottled

by Ekhamanzi Springs (Pty) Ltd, with two production facilities in KwaZulu Natal and one in Franschhoek.

Thirsti continues to invest in sports sponsorship

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atural spring water brand and SANBWA member Thirsti continues to invest in South African sports. In August, the Normandie brand was announced as the official water partner of the Springboks, South Africa’s national rugby team. The launch partnership campaign was immediately and fondly dubbed ‘The Waterboks’.

Thirsti’s three-year partnership with the SA Rugby family adds greater leverage to the already-in-place hydration partnerships with the Cell C Sharks and Vodacom Bulls.

stands out with a fresh approach and values that align well with SA Rugby.”

Thirsti Managing Director Rob Hoatson said, “It is an absolute honour to align our brand with the extraordinary and iconic Springboks and to serve mother nature’s best to these world champions. South African rugby is steeped in passion and pride, and we cannot wait to begin our journey with them this weekend as the Castle Lager Rugby Championship kicks off with a home game against Argentina.”

October was mountain biking month and the almighty Absa Cape Epic, the most televised

THIRSTI - Proud Water Partner to the Springboks

Announcing the partnership, SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux said, “We’re living in challenging times and we’re excited that we are able to announce new partners, especially a proudly South African company such as Thirsti. Thirsti is a good quality product that has the right mineral content and a pH to keep our teams well hydrated on and off the field. Not only is Thirsti’s spring water different, but the brand really

mountain bike race in the world and the only eightday mountain bike stage race classed as Hors Catégorie by the Union Cycliste Internationale. Not only is high quality water a crucial element of this grueling event, but Thirsti took its partnership with the Absa Cape Epic a step further. As a landowner, Thirsti contributed to the route by adding interesting elements to the track, all situated around water.

Head of marketing, Michelle Lillico elaborated, “We worked closely with the Absa Cape Epic team to reflect the Thirsti brand on our part of the route – fast, fun and spectacular. We built two extraordinary sections of track. One was the kilometer long single track called Crocodile Spine. Resembling the spine of a crocodile, it was fast and flowing with the sole purpose of putting a smile on riders’ faces. The other was a 100m floating water bridge. This provided cyclists with a short mental reset before attacking one of the most demanding climbs of this year’s Absa Cape Epic: Fanties Pass.”

Absa Cape Epic | THIRSTI Natural Spring Water

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Ripples & Waves MEMBER NEWS

RECYCLED PRODUCT OF THE YEAR AWARDS 2021

GOLD AWARD THIS CERTIFICATE IS PROUDLY PRESENTED TO

Coca-Cola Beverages SA (Pty) Ltd for its product

Bonaqua PET bottle Category: Packaging Brand Owner: CCBSA Recycler: Extrupet Johann Conradie CHAIRMAN

PP024.pdf

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2021/10/26

10:40

2021

Phil Sereme GENERAL MANAGER

Major win for Bonaqua

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ANBWA member Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa (CCBSA) received a Gold Award in the South African Plastics Recycling Organisation (SAPRO) Recycled Product of the Year 2021 awards for its Bonaqua bottle.

Congratulating CCBSA on its achievement, Extrupet’s sales coordinator, Harjinder Kaur Jutley (Jiney), said, “This well-deserved achievement acknowledges the Bonaqua bottle’s 100% PhoenixPET® inclusion rate – a fact that obviously impressed the SAPRO judges. Extrupet is proud to be in partnership with CCBSA with its flagship food grade rPET product and looks forward to further projects together. Sustainability and collaboration in action.”

MEMBER NEWS

Technology boost for SA’s recycling sector

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n a move set to revolutionise how recyclable materials are traded, tracked and traced in South Africa, an innovative technology called BanQu is being rolled out to recycling buy-back centres across the country.

The digital platform will help buy-back centres accurately record and track their recycling transactions with waste pickers – as well as trace the origins of the recycling – while providing a real-time business management tool enabling them to better understand and manage their businesses.

South Africa’s PET plastic producer responsibility organisation (PRO), PETCO, is driving the rollout of the BanQu technology in a project called Up that commenced in 2021 and is funded by The Coca-Cola Foundation.

Over the next year, the system will be rolled out to 100 buy-back centres identified by PETCO across the country, with 10 centres in Gauteng, Limpopo, the

Western Cape and Eastern Cape that are already live and transacting on the system.

Once registered on the BanQu system, the buy-back centres can capture the quantity of recyclable material bought from waste pickers as well as the price paid for it and where it was collected. This allows buy-back centres to know the quantity of all materials within their centres at any given time.

The waste pickers, in turn, receive an SMS receipt for each transaction and can keep track digitally of their income earned through sales to various buy-back centres.

To date, the 10 live centres have registered over 1 400 waste pickers on the BanQu system and more than 2 350tons of recyclable

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material worth more than R5.7million have been recorded.

Suzan Banda was one of the first to register her buy-back centre in Etwatwa, Ekurhuleni, on BanQu earlier this year.

“I used to write in an invoice book, which took so long. This is much quicker and the waste picker immediately gets an SMS with all the details about the weight of the material and the price,” she said, adding that she could already see the difference it had made to her business. I’m getting more customers because I can process the transactions quicker.”

Melody Nyamakura, one of the workers at Main Buy-Back Centre in Johannesburg’s CBD, is enthusiastic about the benefits of BanQu which, she said “benefits everyone” in the value chain: the waste picker, the buyback centre and, in her case, her employer.

“The waste pickers were thrilled when we introduced BanQu because they can keep track of what they’ve sold and are able to compare their transactions weekly or monthly. For me, once we’ve weighed the material and captured the details, the transaction is immediately sent to my employer, who can check the stock on his phone. In the past, he would have to wait for me to give him a report. Also, because each transaction is uploaded in real time, we no longer need to calculate turnover at the end of the day. It’s all there already,” Nyamakura said.

Another advantage of the system is that if, for example, there is a sudden decline in the number of boxes that are usually brought in, the buy-back centre can compare the numbers at a glance and try to establish what might have changed. “It’s really convenient and much quicker than the old manual system we used, and it is easy to learn. It’s definitely worth it,” she said.

PETCO CEO Cheri Scholtz said BanQu was helping to integrate the informal sector into the recycling value chain – an area that PETCO has been working on for many years and which is now a requirement in Section 18 Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations of the Waste Act. Scholtz said that because informal waste collection was based largely on cash transactions, the majority of the estimated 52 000 waste pickers in South Africa typically had no record of their earnings and so remained largely unbanked and unable to access the kinds of services available to those who were self-employed or had a

record of employment in the formal sector.

The benefit of the technology was that both waste pickers and buy-back centres were able to build up permanent digital financial records, which could be used to access credit to grow their businesses, said Scholtz.

“PETCO supports buy-back centres countrywide by sponsoring infrastructure, essential equipment and training to help them grow and improve efficiencies.

Adding digital technology to the mix is the next logical step in empowering these small businesses and taking them to the next level,” she said.

The system would also provide a more accurate view of their significant contribution to the recycling value chain and circular economy, Scholtz said.“Recording and analysing aggregate data at collector and buy-back centre level will be a step change in understanding market dynamics, pricing and collector behaviour, and ensuring more equitable earning for the informal sector,” said Scholtz.

She explained that the individual data provided by the buy-back centres or waste pickers was aggregated and would remain private. “Any personal information will be protected in accordance with the Protection of Public Information Act (POPIA), and will not be sold to third parties,” said Scholtz.

“The Coca-Cola Foundation is committed to making a difference in communities around the world and we wanted to ensure that we are supporting a cause that does just that, through grant funding provided to PETCO. BanQu’s innovative platform helps waste reclaimers and buy-back centres find the value in waste, supporting a circular

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economy that helps protect the environment and create a better shared future,” says Saadia Madsbjerg, President of The CocaCola Foundation.

BanQu founder and CEO Ashish Gadnis said BanQu used secure blockchain technology to track and trace recycled material across the recycling value chain, ensuring price transparency for both buyers and sellers. “It takes less than an hour to set up the system and train a buy-back centre team. The platform works on any device that can connect to the internet and is cloudbased. Nothing is saved to a device, nor are smartphones necessary.

“BanQu was built to empower smallholder farmers in our food supply chains and the informal waste collectors who are the true heroes of the circular economy. This incredible partnership brings major scale to that vision,” said Gadnis.

Number of Eco-Actives continue to grow

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n his presentation Resetting expectations for consumers and commerce delivered at Zenith’s Global Water Drinks Congress during October this year, Kantar’s Andrew Walker identified those categories that are at risk if they can’t recruit Eco-Actives.

Eco-Actives are shoppers who are highly concerned about the environment and are making the most of actions to reduce their waste. They feel an intrinsic responsibility to be more sustainable, follow the topic more actively and have a greater awareness.

Eco-Considerers are worried about the environment and plastic waste at similar levels to Eco-Actives, but they are closer to Eco-Dismissers in how they act, not making many actions to reduce their waste. Their biggest barriers are convenience and price.

Eco-Dismissers are shoppers who have little or no interest in the environment and are making no steps to reduce waste. The topic rarely features amongst friends and family, and they are lacking awareness of

environmental concerns. They do not think they make a difference.

Walker said plastic waste is close to the top of the agenda of many people and they are making more actions to reduce their plastic waste.

He said that the global share of Eco-Actives is up 1% point in 2021 and 7% points compared to 2019. EcoDismissers are declining with people shifting between activity levels.

Walker said Kantar predicts Eco-Actives will account for half the population by 2029, and that

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brands and categories that currently underperform with Eco-Actives face a big loss as the population shifts. Winning favour with sustainable shoppers takes time. Act now to benefit in years to come, he said.

The rise of seltzer The latest beverage trend storming the USA is for hard seltzer. According to McKenzie Hagan, writing in usualwines.com, in 2019, hard seltzer sales were at $4.4 billion and those figures are expected to climb more than 16% from 2020 to 2027.

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rom the wildly popular triumvirate of White Claw, Bon & Viv and Truly Hard Seltzer to mainstream beer brands like Bud Light, Corona and Michelob Ultra, it’s clear that the hard seltzer market is having a moment — a really big moment,” he wrote.

Seltzer is simply carbonated water: ‘flat’ water given effervescence by the addition of carbon dioxide. Manufacturers also infuse many of these seltzers with the ever mysterious “natural flavours”. These are usually just chemicals extracted from plants or animals that add flavour without using sugar or adding many calories.

Seltzers are not club soda or tonic water.

Club soda is also carbonated with carbon dioxide, but unlike seltzer, it has the addition of potassium bicarbonate and potassium sulfate in the water. These minerals give it a slightly saltier taste than seltzer, which makes it a favourite of bartenders for mixed

drinks. (source: eater.com).

Tonic water is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup and flavoured with quinine, which gives it a little bitterness. (source: delish.com).

Seltzers are also not sparkling mineral waters. In the USA, sparkling mineral water is made with natural spring or well water, which means it has naturally occurring minerals (like salts and sulphur compounds) in it. These minerals sometimes give the water a natural carbonation; other times, carbon dioxide is added for extra oomph. Depending on where the water is from, it might taste heavier than seltzer or club soda — or you

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may just detect some sort of presence of taste, unlike its more-tasteless brethren. (source: eater.com).

Also known as spiked seltzer, alcoholic seltzer or hard sparkling water, hard seltzer is carbonated water combined with alcohol and fruit flavouring. Depending on the hard seltzer brand, these fruit flavours can come from real fruit juice or artificial flavouring.

At Zenith’s Global Water Drinks Congress last month (October), publisher and editor of Beverage Digest, Duane Stanford, unpacked the secrets of seltzer’s success in US markets, first pointing out that the volume of sparkling water sold in the USA grew from less than 100-million 192-ounce cases in 2010 to 857-million in 2020.

The top five brands leading the market are national beverages LaCroix (13% of US$ sales), Pepsi’s Bubly (7.5%), Nestlé’s San Pellegrino (6.9%) and Perrier (6.6%) and Coca-Cola’s Topo Chico (6.6%), but private brands account for 16.7% of US$ sales.

Stanford called LaCroix a “30-year overnight success” while acknowledging that the proliferation of competitors following in its wake succeeded because they – like LaCroix – equated seltzers with bubbles, health and flavour. Aha’s and Bubly’s caffeinated and flavoured variants are examples as are True North and Quatreau, which include “simple ingredients to help increase alertness and concentration, support immunity and reduce fatigue without calories, sweeteners or sugar”.

Ripples & Waves SANBWA Member Update

Name • Address • Telephone • Facsimile • Contact Person

Members

Affiliate members

Aqua Monte – TruBev (Pty) Ltd PO Box 2, Baynesfield, KZN, 3770 • 033 251 0653 • Evan Antel

Alpla Trading SA (Pty) Ltd PO Box 4451, The Reeds, 0158 • 012 657 8683 • Johnny Magalo

aQuellé Private Bag 260, Kranskop, 3268 • 032 481 5005 • 032 481 5006 • Ruth Combrink

Extrupet (Pty) Ltd PO Box 14112, Wadeville, 1422 • 011 865 8380 • Fax 011 865 4254 • Shaun Bouwer – National Sales & Marketing Manager

Bené PO Box 1098, Walkerville, 1876 • 082 881 9860 • 078 644 7780 • Wendy Anderson

Fontana Manufacturing (Pty) Ltd 150 Maclean Street, Umkomaas, 4170 • 039 973 2690 • Cameron Buys – Sales Manager

Bonaqua – Coca-Cola South Africa 116 Oxford Rd, Cnr Glenhove, Rosebank, 2198 • 086 011 2526 • 011 644 0586 • Lerato Dlamini

Krones Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd Private Bag X 42, Bryanston, 2021 • 011 065 5700 • 086 522 6176 • Des Haddon – Sales & Marketing Manager

Cape Aqua Minerale P.O. Box 234, Somerset Mall, 7137 • 021 854 6477 • Richard Whitehead

MPACT Plastics Wadeville PO Box 14093, Wadeville, 1422 • 011 418 6061 086 574 6481 • Mayuri Naidoo – National Sales Manager

Clover Waters: Nestlé Pure Life PO Box 6161, Weltevreden Park, 1715 • 011 471 1400 • Liezl Knoetze

NSF-CMi Africa PO Box 12900, Die Boord, 7613 • 021 880 2024 • 021 880 2840 • Wouter Conradie – General Manager

Dargle Water(Pty) Ltd 21 Petrus Stroom Road, Dargle, KZN, 3265 • 033 815 9540 • Erich Schravesande

PET Recycling Company NPC t/a PETCO P.O. Box 680, Constantia, 7848 • 021 794 6300 (Cpt) • 011 615 8875 (Jhb) • Cheri Scholtz – Chief Executive Officer

Designer Water PO Box 226, Fourways, Centurion, Pretoria, 2086 • 087 550 1231 • John Thompson Di Bella Spring Water PO Box 1516, Ladybrand, 9745 • 082 862 0752 • Maurizio Di Bella

Polypet (Division of Polyoak Packaging) PO Box 125, Plumstead, 7801 • 021 710 9200 • 021 712 1342 • Craig Mackintosh – National Executive: Polypet

Durr Bottling: Aquabella, Fontein PO Box 502, S-Paarl, 7624 • 021 863 3485 • 021 863 0590 • Leslee Durr

Radical Waters PO Box 6482, Halfway House, 1685 • 011 466 0610 • Nikki Wilson – Executive Vice President Marketing & Operations

La Vie De Luc PO Box 15, Franschhoek, 7690 • 021 876 2559 • 021 876 2652 • Christian Von Palace

Volume Injection Products (Pty) Ltd PO Box 5, Gonubie, 5256 • 043 732 1178 • Sam Waterson

Pioneer Foods (Pty) Ltd PO Box 177, Ceres, 6835 • 023 313 3701 • 023 313 3410 • Paul Collingridge

All correspondence and enquiries should be addressed to Charlotte Metcalf at: SANBWA, PO Box 7649, Halfway House, 1685 Telephone: (011) 884 5916 Facsimile: 086 568 4862 Email: sanbwa@worldonline.co.za

Thirsti Water P.O. Box 13559, Cascades, 3202 • 034 314 9801 • Rob Hoatson Valpré – Coca-Cola South Africa 116 Oxford Rd, Cnr Glenhove, Rosebank, 2198 • 011 644 0666 • 011 644 0586 • Elizabeth Moroldo

Visit us on our website: www.sanbwa.org.za

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