Tata may take Himalayan water to new shores

by Tanvi Shukla

Almost a year after Tata Tea bought the "Himalayan" brand of bottled water owned by Mount Everest Mineral Water, the company is ready with its plans to leveraging the brand. Announcements will be made within a fortnight regarding the future of Himalayan.

"Preparations are done. Updating and upgrading has been carried out and required capacity has been organised," Percy Siganporia, managing director, Tata Tea told analysts on Friday. "Lot of interesting things are going to happen, watch this space in the next fortnight."

Industry experts say there a couple of options that Tata Tea could explore. One is getting into enhanced water or flavoured water. The other, which everyone is sure of, is taking the brand overseas. In the past, company officials have not ruled out the above possibilities, though they remained tight lipped about the company's plans.

"There will certainly be growth in the current format. We are also looking at scaling up a step. Details will be out soon" said Siganporia.

Tata Tea could put its experience from its short tenure with the enhanced water maker Energy Brands Inc to use with Himalayan.

The company has been aiming to establish itself as a global player in beverages, especially in the verticals of tea, coffee and water. After selling its stake in Glaceau in 2006-end for a profit of $523 million that it earned within a year of buying the stake, the company went on to buy an over 30% stake in Himalayan.

Himalayan is a natural water brand, with majority of its business being institutional. Natural water segment is growing at 15% annually. The market size for bottled water is Rs 1,200 crore, and only 10% of this is natural water.

Natural water differs from regular packaged water in that it is packaged at its source in its present form and involves no process.

Himalayan's bottling plant is in Himachal Pradesh, with a bottling capacity of 2.5 lakh litres per day.

It is based at a perennial source, the only one in India, making it a great business venture. The aquifer in Himachal (zones in the earth where water is stored) has a huge reserve with a potential on a replenishable basis to tap up to four to five times the Evian water source output at present.

Evian is present in the Alps, the only other major natural water source.

Resource:Sifi