Maine bottler markets water with a pure distinction
Summit Spring hopes its unfiltered Raw Water will appeal to consumers of organic food.
By MELANIE CREAMER, Staff Writer
November 22, 2009
Will consumers pay $5.95 for a liter of spring water?
Bryan Pullen, president and CEO of Summit Spring, will soon find out.
Pullen's company has begun distributing its new product, Raw Water, an unfiltered, untreated spring water bottled straight from the ground and aimed at consumers of raw foods.
Wrapped in plain brown paper to retard the growth of algae, the glass bottle of Raw Water will sell at outlets like Whole Foods that cater to shoppers searching for organic products.
Summit Spring is the first company in Maine to receive a waiver of state filtration and treatment requirements because of the purity of its water.
Roger Crouse, director of the state's drinking water program, said Pullen's water met all state and federal standards without treatment.
"Their source of water is pristine," Crouse said.
The spring is unusual because of its location. Summit Hill is 900 feet above sea level in Harrison, making it among the highest points in Cumberland County.
Hydrogeologists believe the spring exits from a large fracture in the hill's bedrock, the water forced to the surface from deep underground.
More than a century ago, tourists from New York and Boston came to Summit Hill to bathe in the waters, then tapped it as a healing tonic.
In its heyday, Summit Mineral Spring Water was shipped around the country in spruce barrels.
Tests have shown the water to be very pure, Pullen said, with levels of key organic and inorganic compounds in the parts-per-billion range.
Pullen said the water bubbles to the surface and is gravity-fed to a bottling plant 17 feet below the source. He said he doesn't use pumps, filters or bore holes to help the process.
"It's a free-flowing natural spring," Pullen said. "It's bottled seconds after it comes out of the ground. It's a geographical phenomenon."
Bottled water is big business, with sales of $15 billion in the United States, according to Tom Lauria, vice president of communications for the International Bottled Water Association.
Filtered municipal water bottled by Pepsi, under the Aquafina brand, and Coca-Cola, sold as Dasani, are the top-selling two bottled waters in America.
Poland Spring is the nation's third best-selling water with $887 million in sales. It commands a 7.9 percent market share, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation.
Pullen said what separates his water from others on the market, like Aquafina and Dasani, is the filtering process.
"Any water that goes through reverse osmosis is stripped of natural nutrients," Pullen said. "It becomes distilled water. They have to inject the minerals back in. It's treated so much that it's dead."
Lauria said he knew of only one other bottled water like Pullen's – Evian, which is bottled at its source in Evian-les-Bains in the French Alps.
Pullen began selling water soon after he bought the company in 2004.
Water bottled under the Summit Spring label, which Pullen says is minimally treated, is sold in roughly 100 stores in New England.
The spring provides an estimated 35 million gallons a year. Pullen said he bottles roughly 300,000 gallons a year, but hopes Raw Water will increase his production significantly.
Staff Writer Melanie Creamer can be contacted at 791-6361 or at:
mcreamer@pressherald.com
