A sneak Peaq into latest drink bottle
A personal pursuit for a better drink bottle has led to a fledgling enterprise for a group of young Manawatū entrepreneurs.
They were so taken with a UV light self-cleaning drink bottle from China they struck a partnership with the supplier to market it in New Zealand.
The Peaq branded bottles launched this week and its head of operations Jake Besenyi, 25, was confident it would appeal to any discerning taste buds, but particularly intrepid travellers and communities routinely plagued by contaminated drinking water.
The bottle features ultraviolet-C lights inside the lid which, when activated on a 90-second cycle, disinfects the 500ml bottle of bacteria, cleaning both it and the water.
International certified testing has found UV light sterilises water of 99.9% of waterborne pathogens and contaminants, such as E. coli.
Besenyi and colleagues at Palmerston North-based creative agency Eltezza were increasingly conscious of the number of plastic drink bottles they were going through, both in terms of the environmental impact and the impact of plastic on water quality.
As they explored solutions they also noticed there was a growing awareness of UV bottles and consumer trends toward drink bottles as fashionable accessories, through brands such as Frank Green and Yeti.
“We were just going to have it for ourselves,” said marketing manager Danilo Herrera, 25.
“There was nothing else like it here, and we had the ability to do everything from scratch, so we thought let’s take a risk and doit.”
Besenyi said local testing had been carried out with farmers who were favouring the taste of UV-treated rainwater over the use of chemicals.
There was potential, too, for the drink bottles to appeal to residents in Marton, where algae has long tainted the taste and smell of the town’s water, and communities in Tararua routinely hit with boil water notices.
“You pop that water in from the taps, or wherever, and it’s cleaning 99.9% of the bacteria in it.”
The virtues of the UV bottle did not extend to severely polluted waterways, such as the Manawatū River, where there was a likelihood of solid matter that could not be broken down.
“So long as there’s no debris, you are good to go.”
Though it is not the first bottle of its kind on the market, the team believe its $89.99 price and interactive interface should give Peaq an edge over the competition, such as Larq ($200) and Mountain Fresh ($150).
Director Mo Eltayeb, 26, said the plan was to establish the brand through online sales and reviews, before pitching Peaq to the likes of Hunting & Fishing and Macpac.
As the design and range developed, they had ambitions to incorporate their own intellectual property into the product.