CHAPTER 2

PROFILE OF THE STUDY

INTRODUCTION

Water forms an essential part of every living being. After air, water is the most

important necessity for life. Water plays a number of functions for the body. It

serves as the body's transportation system, it acts as a lubricant, it regulates the

body temperature etc. The eulogy for water is an unending thing. In fact more

than 2/3rd of the human body is made of water. The importance of water for

human body can be well accessed from the fact that if the amount of water in our

body is reduced by just 1-2%, we feel very thirsty. If it's reduced by 5%, our skin

will shrink and we will have difficulty moving our muscles and if it's reduced by

10%, we will die.

Moreover with this commodity being a human necessity it makes best

sense to do business in. As a normal human being requires on an average needs

2-3 liters of water every day and world population is more than 6 billion (growing

at 2-3% annually), the business opportunity is humongous and the potential is

largely untapped. These facts about water added to the growing number of cases

of water borne diseases, increasing water pollution, increasing urbanization,

increasing scarcity of pure and safe water etc. have made the bottled water

business quite lucrative. In addition with getting pure drinking water from
municipal taps in cities and towns becoming a luxury the scenario has become so

lucrative in business sense that the opportunity is being misused by a number of

companies especially in our country. These companies are selling plain tap water

under the name of mineral water and are be-fooling consumers. The situation has

got aggravated by lack of awareness among common people about mineral water

and also due to lack of initiatives on part of the government both on count of

setting stringent norms as well as on taking action against non-compliers. In fact

one of the major factors for flourishing of the sector is the public fear that water

supplied by civic bodies is impure.

HISTORY OF MINERAL WATER

The tradition of bottled water and mineral water is not very old. Even in western

countries the practice of bottled drinking water started in 1950s. The trend of

having mineral water gained grounds in the market.

Since ancient time people have used water from mineral springs, especially hot

springs, for bathing due to its supposed therapeutic value for rheumatism,

arthritis, skin diseases, and various other ailments. Depending on the

temperature of the water, the location, the altitude, and the climate at the spring,

it can be used to cure different ailments. This started the trend of using mineral

water for drinking purpose to exploit the therapeutic value of the water. This

trend started gaining momentum in mid 1970s and since then large quantities of
bottled water from mineral springs in France and other European countries are

exported every year.

The concept of bottled has been quite prevalent in western countries due to

greater health consciousness and higher awareness about health and hygiene.

The international standards regarding bottled water are so stringent that for a

particular brand of water to be certified as bottled water it has to get approvals

on four levels: federal, state, trade association and individual company levels.

In United States, the bottled water industry is regulated on four levels: federal (by

the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a food product), state, industry

association, and individual company. EPA (Environment Protection Agency)

regulates public water systems. FDA regulates bottled water that crosses state

lines.

HOW TO WORK

PURIFICATION PROCESS

Purity and safety are two major factors that should be taken care in sourcing and

processing of bottled water. Under ground water is used by it for filling the water.

Underground spring is carefully selected based on its portability and pathogen

free water. Great care goes in tapping this source. Only water below 25 meters is

tapped.
This is to avoid any surface contamination to percolate and mix with underground

water source. Area surrounding the water collection tube at the surface is

protected and kept clean.

The underground water goes through seven stages of purification process which

is as follows:

1) CHLORINISATION

First of all water is taken out from six bore wells and stored in the tank and

chlorine is mixed in it. This is done to remove bacteria from water.

2) SAND FILTRATION

Chlorine mixed water is passed through seven layers of sand in a tank. This way all

the major bacteria are taken out from water.

3) CARBON FILTER

After sand filtration water is passed through carbon filter to remove the chlorine

that was mixed earlier.

4) ULTRA FILTRATION

Under this method water is passed through a filter, which has the pores of .2

microns, and even the biggest r of bacteria is of .5 microns, hence through this

filter even the remotest bacteria and dust particles are taken out.
5) REVERSE OSMOSIS

As per the law TDS (total dissolved solids) are required to be maintained at

the level of 70 - 110 ppm, through reverse osmosis TDS is maintained at

100 ppm.

6) OZONISATION

Under this method ozone gas is mixed with water.

7) ULTRA FILTRATION

Under this method ultra violet rays are passed through the water to kill water.

This is basically a precautionary step to purify water as after reverse osmosis no

bacteria remain in water. After whole this process at last step bottles are passed

through a white screen where a quality in charge inspect each and every bottle to

ensure that there are no dust particles in the bottles and if they are found then

those bottles are rejected.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

 Consumers are growing more health conscious and are more careful of

their drinking habits.

 Brand loyalty is very low as all the products taste the same so they can buy

just any product which is on the shelf, same as that of soft drinks and fruit

beverages.

 Availability in the chilled form and brand awareness plays a crucial role in

purchase decisions.
 While there is no aversion to consumption of mineral water by any age

group, this product is mainly consumed by the people in the age group of

20- 35 years who have less attraction of soft drinks or other synthetic

drinks whereas youngsters look in for soft drinks and fruit beverages to

quench their thirst.

 Visibility is another factor that should be taken care of by the companies as

consumers are not very brand loyal and consume whatever is in front of

them
CONCLUSION

To conclude, it can be safely concluded, therefore, that the problem is that of

production capacity, keeping quality and lead time, including applying suitable

marketing strategy, and not lack of either market of price /profit consideration

which limit, the mineral water factories from catering to local/ indigenous

consumers. After seeing the different sales trends and market shares graphs, one

can easily derive that at present the foreign brands like Kinley & Aquafina are

going share equally the market share and the Indian companies like Bisleri &

Bailey who show a good market share would surely come down as the modern

marketing skills and technologies used by Coke & Pepsi would cover the large part

of the market.