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State of the art bottling
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Over the last decade, Ty Nant has become a legend in the world of bottled waters. Drilltalk visits Ty Nant Spring Water’s bottling plant at Bethania,West Wales and talks to general manager Nick Taylor, to gain an insight into his firm’s high profile success WITH IMAGINATIVE MARKETING, and a fetish for quality in all its respects, Ty Nant has carved itself a major role in an overcrowded market.
Today, the distinctive blue bottle graces the tables of diners worldwidehalf the company’s output is exported, and their overseas sales are the highest of any UK bottled water. Taking a pride in being innovators, Ty Nant has won a long string of awards for design, export, marketing excellence and more. They attained ‘natural mineral water’ status in 1994. Dealing with success Creating this additional capacity called for a major site extension. Building the range Focus on quality ‘In every respect, we aim to present ourselves as a class actthis extends to all our activities.’ Water is sampled by the company’s tasting panel, and if they are, for any reason, not happy, the batch in question is not sold. They have their own geologist and microbiologist on site, and quality assurance procedures start with incoming bottles and packaging materials, and are completed on filled, labelled bottles. Protecting the source Any waste water is carefully treated via state-of-the-art interceptors and returned as pure as possible to the environment. Water is the product, and depending on secure boreholes is clearly fundamental to operations. There are three production boreholes, plus six observation boreholes. The production boreholes were tested for three years before being used commercially. Ty Nant took considerable care selecting a firm to drill their boreholes. Avoidance of introducing any pollution was a major issue when drilling for water, and any risk of contamination resulting from drilling operations was unacceptable. ‘We needed the security of working with an established driller with a good track record,’ says Taylor. ‘Brian Morgan’s company impressed us with their commitment to excellence.’ Taylor continues on this theme: ‘Morgan’s proposals were highly detailed, with working procedures that fully took the all-important environmental considerations into account’. Environmental control ‘There is a lot at stake, as people buying bottled water take purity and quality for granted. In the bottled water market, confidence is everything, and over the years there have been some very high profile business casualties where standards have slipped.’ ‘Professionalism is the key, and we look to WB&AD Morgan to help protect our resource.’ The ten-year long association extends to Morgan’s providing hydrogeological advice. Sinking boreholes, typically to a depth of 30 metres, is something of a challenge, reports WB&AD Morgan’s managing director, Brian Morgan, and over the years his firm has gained considerable familiarity with the terrain Says Morgan: ‘This is not an easy site. A thick clay layer protects the ground water. But there is a considerable amount of rock in the boulder claymassive boulders, all of which combines to make life interesting for us.’ A sparkling future This is a firm that doesn’t rest on its laurelsthey have already exceeded a production level of 10 million litres of water bottled annually. And for a company that leaves nothing to chance, this is surely just the start. Brian Morgan concludes: ‘All my team are very proud of the part we are playing in helping build Ty Nant’s continued success.’ |
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