Tibet Glacier Mineral Water Co Ltd is the very first company to have succeeded in bottling mineral water from a Tibetan spring 16,800 feet up in the mountains, and launching it successfully on the Chinese market.
The water is actually bottled at a mere 14,300 feet, near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. No fewer than three Krones lines have been installed here successively since 2006.
Plenty of people had already toyed with the idea of bottling and marketing water from the glaciers of the Tibetan mountains, the 'Roof of the World'. But for one reason or another, the plans never came to fruition.
The Hong-Kong-based Mineral Water Resources Ltd, the parent company of Tibet Zhongji Jiahua and Tibet Glacier, had been planning this venture for around ten years, exploring a multiplicity of good, productive springs in the vicinity of Lhasa.
The breakthrough finally came to pass when the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was inaugurated on 1 July 2006, since this provided Tibet Glacier with a financially viable, (relatively) fast option for accessing the Chinese market.
For goods like the bottled mineral water from Tibet Glacier, this cuts the transport time from Lhasa to Beijing to two or three days, whereas delivery by truck via the Friendship Highway, the main road between Nepal and Lhasa, would have taken eight times as long.
The inauguration of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was for Tibet Glacier the key to success.
A very special kind of water
The name for the new mineral water from the Tibetan glaciers was quickly found: '5100', which is the spring’s elevation in metres.
Tibet Glacier has placed 5100 in the ultra-high-priced range: the target group can purchase the 500-millilitre bottle in the supermarkets for an average of eight RMB, the equivalent of 80 eurocents.
This is about eight times as high as the prices for normal consumer mineral water. 'There are huge differences between individual waters', is the firm conviction of Wallace Yu, President of Mineral Water Resources Ltd. in Hong Kong.
“That’s something more and more consumers are going to take on board," Yu says. "There’s good water and there’s bad water. The water we get from the Nianqing Tanggula mountains, about one day’s drive away from the Himalayas, is without a doubt among the best in the world.”
The Nianqing Tanggula range, with its snow-covered peaks and glaciers, offers a well-nigh infinite supply of water. The region is also home to one of Buddhism’s three sacred lakes, the 'Heavenly Lake' of Namtso.
The Qinghai-Tibet plateau is renowned as one of mankind’s few remaining totally unpolluted regions. The spring used here is very productive, capable of yielding up to 3,000 cubic metres of water a day, and is rich in valuable minerals and micro-elements.
“Customers tell me that when they drink a bottle of 5100 water after getting up in the morning, the energy lasts them for the whole day,” Yu says.
"Children are also fond of 5100, although you would think they’d prefer soft drinks, and children are unerring when it comes to pricing. In China, too, we’re seeing enhanced levels of health-awareness, of a familial wellness culture.
"And compared to a medicine, 5100 is very affordable. So there are going to be more and more people wanting to drink this water. Which makes me very confident that we’re gong to hit our targets.”
Elegantly square-shaped
For upmarket product positioning, of course, an elegant bottle design was essential. “We got some invaluable support from Krones’ PET design experts, who provided the finishing technical touches,” Wallace Yu explains.
Tibet Glacier went for a classical square shape, one of striking visual elegance, but also not without its problems in terms of transport handling on the line. This bottle has been designed in sizes of 330 millilitres, 500 millilitres, 1.0 litres and 1.5 litres.
So far the lightweighting issue has been of relatively minor importance for Tibet Glacier. Because: “The stronger the bottles, the safer they are in transit, and the more comfortable they feel in your hands,” says a confident Wallace Yu.
The preforms, produced in-house, weigh 18 grams/330 millilitres, 23.5 grams/500 millilitres, 36.8 grams/1.0 litres and 47.6 g/1.5 litres. A discerning target group Only about a fifth of the production output goes to the supermarkets.
“In supermarkets, all we want to do is get ourselves better-known, show that this water actually exists,” Yu says.
Most of the water is sold in restaurants, hotels, golf clubs and night clubs — to a discerning, higher-earning clientele.
The most important container size is the small 330-millilitre bottle. Not least because it’s served in the restaurant cars of the high-speed trains so popular in China, criss-crossing the Middle Kingdom at speeds of up to 320 kilometres an hour.
Wallace Yu also sees this as an excellent showcase for his product. “In trains, people have time to pick up the bottle and have a leisurely look at it," he says. "That sticks in the memory for much longer than a TV ad, for example.”
Tibet Glacier also tested perceptions of the labels. 5100 had begun with a green label, then switched to blue, and has now arrived at a third version, blue sky over white glaciers and green meadows, with a high-speed train in their midst.
Step by step to full capacity
And this is how the water from the Tibetan glaciers found its way onto the Chinese market: in 2004, the project was launched, in 2006, Tibet Glacier too delivery of its first blow-moulder/filler BLOC from Krones, rated at 24,000 containers an hour, plus a Contiroll labeller, enabling Tibet Glacier to start off just by testing the Tibetan market.
In 2007, 5100 was launched on the Chinese market, while 2008 saw the acquisition of a second filler BLOC with the same rating, plus an Autocol for applying pressure-sensitive labels. By the end of 2008, the output had already reached 50,000 tons.
Early in 2009, the third stage materialised, this time a complete PET line from Krones, rated at 36,000 containers an hour.
In 2009, the target is already to double the output to 100,000 tons, thanks to new distribution partners for nationwide sales. The newly built production hall has enough space for three more lines.
Special features for coping with the unusual elevation
Right from the start, the bottling plant’s elevation necessitated a series of special measures in order to assure reliable bottle production, filling and labelling. With its long years of experience in installing lines at different elevations, Krones incorporated the requisite design modifications.
For one thing, the ratings of all the drives had to be chosen at least 20 per cent higher than for their counterparts under standard conditions.
Since Tibet Glacier also sells the water in more low-lying regions, down to sea level, the bottles have to withstand a pressure differential of about 0.4 bar — corresponding to about 13,000 feet further down.
This, of course, influenced the bottle design work. In order to guard against any deformation of the bottle, the PET containers are filled as closely as possible to the brim, since the liquid is less amenable to compression than the air in the bottle’s headspace.
The air consumption at the stretch blow-moulding machine, too, is significantly higher. At sea level, it would be 581 cubic metres an hour; at 14,300 feet, by contrast, it has risen to 999 cubic metres an hour, almost twice as much.
The high-performance compressors supplied by Krones were accordingly dimensioned for 70 per cent more capacity, while the coolers for the Contiform are 25 per cent more powerful.
The other machine configurations conformed very largely to Krones’ normal standards. But not everything was foreseeable.
For instance, the technical guarantee for the touch-screen control panels applied only for elevations of up to 10,000 feet and temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius. Given the low ambient temperatures in Tibet, however, the parameter of increased elevation was not a problem.
Admirable performance under what were extremely difficult conditions
The unusual elevation meant that erection work up among the mountains was an entirely new experience for the Krones staff involved: one or two of them suffered a bit from altitude sickness.
“When we first started talking to Krones we didn’t know whether the machines were really going to work at this elevation," Yu says.
"At the end we were very satisfied with this admirable performance under what were extremely difficult conditions.”
By deploying additional service personnel, the lost installation time was quickly made up. "With the third line, we now have a capacity of two million bottles a day or 300,000 tons a year," he adds.
"The goal in the next five years is to get the company listed on the stock exchange, and upsize its production capacity to 400,000 tons a year.
"We intend to first achieve this on the Chinese market, build up a high-profile image here, and only then start thinking about exports. Krones fits in perfectly with this strategy.
"We have no doubts about the quality of the machines, Krones is right at the top of our priority listings as a vendor, and we see this as a long-term partnership. A unique project."
Add a comment