The bottled water, sold under the brand name Avitez, is produced in Bangkok. Production started only in August yet already 20,000 bottles a month are being sold to hotel chains such as Centara, Movenpick, and Meridien, as well as The Chava, Serenity Terraces and Anantara on Phuket.
The company was founded by two women, Sandy Neilson from Australia and Emer Gannon from Ireland, with Thai shareholders. Last week Ms Ganon, who doubles up as director of sales and marketing, was in Phuket to try to nail down a local distributor.
The bottles are made in the Bangkok facility, which has a current maximum capacity of 300,000 a month, from a resin distilled from maize.
The resin currently comes from the US, but 50 per cent of the company that makes it, NatureWorks, has been bought by Thai petroleum giant PTT and from 2015 the resin will be manufactured in Thailand, using cassava as the base material.
The bottles are elegant, with the Avitez logo and the words “Proud to be Thai” printed directly onto the surface. They feel as if they are made of plastic but, the enthusiastic Ms Ganon explains, “they use half the fuel to produce, and production produces 60 per cent less gases.
“The bottles can be reused, or they can be composted – they degrade in 80 days – or they can be incinerated – they give off no poisonous fumes.”
At the moment, the firm is limiting deliveries to a “closed loop environment” – basically hotels and resorts because the used bottles can be collected each time a new delivery is made, and reused or recycled.
Ms Ganon says that she hopes to begin home deliveries in Phuket soon, and is in negotiation with a delivery company to handle this. Again, when deliveries are made, the used bottles will be collected.
The bottles, which contain mineral water from Kanchanaburi, cost B22 each for a 500ml bottle, wholesale. Anyone interested in buying should visit the website at avitez.com.