Thirst for seawater unquenched
By Jaymes Song
Associated Press
KAILUA, HAWAI'I — Koyo USA Corp., the only company selling deep-sea water from Hawai'i, is expanding its plant and has applied to sell the water in the United States.
Michael Darden • Associated Press
The company is producing more than 200,000 bottles a day and says it can't keep up with demand in Japan, where it sells 1.5 liter bottles of its MaHaLo brand for $4 to $6 each. The sales price in the United States would be lower, though Federal Drug Administration approval is still required.
Lab supervisor and Koyo USA spokesman John Frostad shows off a 1.5 liter bottle of water produced at the company's plant near Kailua, Kona. Known for its coffee beans and chocolate-dipped cookies, the Big Island has another luxurious product: bottled deep-sea water.
"We couldn't ask for better sales," Koyo spokesman John Frosted said. "At this point, we can't make enough. We have no surplus."
Desalinated deep-sea water from Kona is the state's fastest-growing export, with demand soaring in Japan. Super-cold water sucked up from thousands of feet below the Pacific Ocean's surface is being marketed as healthy, pure, mineral-rich drinking water.
Four other companies hope to cash in on the deep-sea water fad, and so does the state, which collects royalties and rent from the bottlers based at the state Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i Authority property, next to the Big Island's Kona International Airport.
The state pumps the chilly water from 2,000 feet beneath the sea, and the companies pay a few cents per bottle to use the laboratory's logo on their label, certifying the deep-sea water was collected at the state facility.
Asia's thirst for Hawaiian seawater also has attracted Los Angeles-based Deep Sea Water International; Japanese-owned Enzamin USA and Hawaii Deep Marine Inc.; and South Korean-owned Savers Holdings Ltd.
Yoshiyuki Furuno, general manager of Enzamin USA, said Hawai'i products have strong brand recognition in Japan for being high-quality, natural and pure.
"Japanese people have a very good image of Hawai'i as a beautiful place with azure skies, clear seas and gentle breeze," he said. "They have a very good image for Hawai'i."
Savers general manager Guy Toyama said bottled seawater has been around in Japan since the mid-1990s, but Japanese products cannot match the depth, quality and purity of the water from the middle of the Pacific.
Savers plans to begin construction this month and will sell primarily in South Korea before expanding to China and the United States. Its two-liter bottles will retail for about $4, and half-liter bottles, for about $2.
Koyo claims deep-sea water contains ionized sodium, ionized chlorine, magnesium and calcium, which can help with everything from circulation to metabolism. The depth also protects the water from modern contaminants from industry, farming or humans, the company said on its Web site.
Koyo's 100,000-square-feet facility features a windowless factory filled with modern stainless-steel machinery, conveyer belts and pipes. Most of the process is automated and runs 17 hours per day.
Light-blue plastic bottles are blown and stacked by a robotic arm before being rinsed, filled, capped and labeled. The bottles are then taken to a large room where employees wearing face masks and hair nets inspect them for loose caps, misplaced labels or damaged bottles.
"This is a sterile, phenomenally modern, robotic, well-run place," said Jeff Smith, former Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i Authority executive director, interviewed just before he left the laboratory last month. "It looks like a hospital, it's so clean."
When Smith was first approached three years ago by a company that wanted to bottle and sell ocean water, he thought it was a joke. Now, government and business leaders from around the world have visited the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i Authority to study the deep-sea water bottling phenomenon.
Smith said he realized there was a need for clean drinking water, especially with the world's population expanding and fresh water sources being polluted by industry or humans.
"Many people have said, 'Hey Jeff, that's a fad.' I'm thinking, so was the car," he said. "People need water."
Smith, who has left the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i Authority to work for Deep Sea Water International, said the bottlers diversify Hawai'i's tourism-dependent economy.
"No matter what the tourism industry does, these guys will keep running," Smith said.
Mark Anderson of the state's Foreign-Trade Zone Division said Hawai'i always had difficulty creating new export industries, because Asia and the West Coast have more resources and cheaper labor.
But Hawai'i may have discovered an inexhaustible gold mine.
"There's a lot of water out there. I don't think they're going to run out," Anderson said.
