IT’S A FORMULA FOR SUCCESS … JUST ADD W ATER
Family business set to export high- quality H20 to China
TOWNSVILLE might be in serious drought but a small family- owned local business has hit the jackpot with a deal to sell some of the purest natural spring water on Earth to the Chinese.
Mount Elliot Springs will send its first shipment of bottled water to China this month in what is expected to become a million bottle a year niche market providing water to mix with baby formula.
Mount Elliot Springs manager Keith Brincat is excited.
“We started ( eight years ago) with basically no customers,” Mr Brincat said. “We knocked on hundreds of doors and got knocked back but we kept chipping away.
“This is a big piece of the block that’s come away from persistence and hard work.”
The company is working with South Australian business consultant Michael Fullgrabe of Ozwater Pty Ltd who with his wife developed the idea for the infant formula niche market and arranged consignments with Chinese importers and the owners of 250 child supply and pharmacy outlets in the provinces and municipalities of Yunnan, Sichuan and Chongqing.
They have named the product My Precious One and with Mount Elliot Springs arranged approvals.
Mr Fullgrabe said he was as excited as the Brincats.
“It’s the best water in Australia in my opinion. What these guys are doing is so impressive,” he said.
Mr Fullgrabe said the combination of water quality, the best Chinese and German plant and equipment and Mount Elliot’s proximity to Townsville’s export port provided clear advantages. “I think this will be a new industry for Townsville,” he said.
The Brincats searched North Queensland for suitable locations, settling on Majors Creek behind Mount Elliot where they were told they would find no water.
But Mr Brincat said the geology of the area, with a very hard rhyolite volcanic rock, produced pure spring water with an unusually high pH scale. Its natural alkalinity is expected to drive huge demand from Chinese mothers.
Mr Fullgrabe said each of the three Chinese provinces had a higher population than all of Australia.
“( The Chinese importers) believe it will go off the shelves in the first week,” he said. “( Mount Elliot Springs) will be doing over a million ( 1.5 litre) bottles a year.”
Mr Brincat said they had access to plenty of water from a spring flowing into the area’s aquifer and were gearing up, having employed five more staff to supply the first shipments of 36,000 bottles and were looking at hiring another five to 10 people.
“It’s a bit scary. This is going to take us from a small business,” he said. “We wonder whether we are going to be able to keep up with demand ( but) we are ready.”