Highland Spring, the iconic Scottish mineral tipple owned by the Al Tajir family of Dubai, yesterday unveiled buoyant profits for 2006 calender year.
Pre-tax profits at the Blackford, Perthshire, company, which has now overtaken French group Volvic to become number two in the UK bottled water market, behind Evian, grew by 28% to £4.1m, compared with £3.2m in 2005.
Turnover climbed to £54.2m last year from £51.6m at the iconic Scottish brand with the tartan label, with litre sales of the Highland Spring improving 12% to 179 million litres.
The company said it now had a 7.9% brand share of the UK market.
Sally Stanley, marketing director of Highland Spring, said: "The substantial increase in turnover and profit is the result of our continued commitment to grow the brand ahead of the market and continued investment for future success.
"An exceptionally warm summer in 2006 coupled with successful sales and marketing activities also contributed towards the results."
Stanley also said that a further £3m was being invested during the current financial year for additional production facilities to "help meet future demand and upgrade existing bottling lines".
In spite of poor summer weather this year, the com- pany said it was still growing ahead of the market "quite considerably".
In August, the company launched its first kids' sparkling water with a variant of Highland Spring for Kids, the number one children's bottled water.
Meanwhile, the company made no comments on reports earlier this year that it was a takeover target for US drinks giant Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola is understood to be keen to expand into the market, with current trends showing people in the UK are expected to drink more bottled water than Coke by the end of the decade.
Resource: The Herald
