Tapping Into the Local Bottled Water Market

– By Bill Lawyer –

Paper or plastic; cloth or disposable; bottled or tap — these are just a few of the many ecological decisions faced by people who want to reduce their carbon footprint.

A Rye-based company, So Clear Beverages, has made the “bottled or tap” decision a little easier.

So Clear was the brainchild of Frank Parker, who for many years operated a successful Anheuser-Busch beer distribution operation in the Bronx and Westchester. He learned that business from his father. Continuing the family business tradition, his wife, Anna, and daughter, Emily, a college student, got involved in “So Clear”. Particularly Emily.

Frank Parker’s vision was to find a way to cut back on container manufacturing for the beverage industry, particularly in the restaurant sector. He sold his distributing business in 1998 to concentrate on achieving this vision. After considering various ideas, he decided to focus on bottled water.

So Clear’s goal is to offer restaurant customers an alternative to the many non-reusable bottled sparkling waters that are shipped to the U.S. from distant locales such as Fiji, Italy, France and Ireland, as well as provide an alternative to straight tap water or bottled tap water (such as Aquafina, which is PWS — public water source).
Drawing on the funds and experience he gained from his beer-distributing franchise, and partnering with then fellow-Rye resident Fred Walsh, of Morgan Stanley, Frank began putting together the components needed to make his business work.

The first step was to locate a dependable, nearby source of high-quality spring water to serve the northeast urban restaurant markets. Then he had to find a quality bottling operation. He found these in the town of Peru, Maine, home of the Carrabassett Spring Water Company. Peru is about 43 miles northwest of Augusta.

The partners found a company in Germany that could manufacture the reusable bottles, and began their operations on a small scale, focusing on the New York metropolitan market that Frank knew so well. The key to success was marketing the concept to restaurants.

Daughter Emily came on board the Maine operation during her summer break in 2002. “Dad hired me and a bunch of my college friends from Bates to work on sales and distribution.” They also used successful wine distributors to market their products to high-end restaurants.

She noted that “at first, it wasn’t the environmental aspect that struck a chord with restaurant managers, it was the custom ‘labeling’ that we offered.” So Clear worked with restaurants to create custom graphics that are permanently “fired” onto the bottles, for any customer who sold a minimum number of cases of water per month.

“We struggled to find the right technology to “fire” directly onto the glass, to make the bottles themselves an attractive part of the dining experience,” Emily recalls. And, the sparkling water bottles are pleasingly frosted.

When Emily graduated from college, she took on the business full-time. She worked in all areas of the company’s operations, from bottling to distributing to refilling.
Meanwhile, Frank met MBA candidate Andy Allen and brought him into the company. So Clear’s sales grew dramatically in 2005, and their own brand of bottled water, Clear Moon, received a very positive write-up in New York Magazine the following spring. New York City customers include Megu, Bar Boulud and Le Gigot.

By then, having found a local spring water source at Mt. Palomar, they decided to expand their operations to the San Diego area. Emily moved to the area to head the marketing operations. Here she found that the environmental benefits of their products were the best selling points.

A highly complimentary article in the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2007 quoted chef Kipp Downing of Pacifica Del Mar restaurant: “They produce the bottles, collect the empties, double wash them, triple rinse them with spring water, refill them, and then deliver the bottles back to the restaurant.” And, he added, “Diners are attracted to the carafes with the restaurant’s red fish logo and old fashioned wire-plug top.”

Tragically, Frank Parker died of a heart attack last March, so he did not get to see the continued progress that the company has made in the past year. Emily Parker has taken over as President, and Andy Allen is Vice President.

Despite the national economic downturn, So Clear is making plans to expand into urban markets around the country, starting with northern California. And they are negotiating with national hotel chains to carry their products.

While the company has yet to turn a profit, Emily Parker is confident that they have the financial support, product line, and business savvy to get into the black very soon. And So Clear is “clearly” the kind of sustainable business that our economy needs.