High quality drinking water from Australia is being touted as a perfect companion product to help quench China’s thirst for ‘clean and green’ infant milk powder.
South Australian company PH8 has captured the attention of the Asian market in recent months after winning a gold medal at the 5th China International High-end Drinking Water Industry Expo 2016 in July.
The company is now in talks with a Victorian powdered milk producer to export its high alkaline water to China as a companion product.
Demand for high quality powdered milk from Australia, which is perceived as being clean and green by Chinese consumers, has skyrocketed since 2008 when six babies died and 300,000 became ill after drinking contaminated Chinese formula.
PH8 MD Kym Dickeson said the growth of the Chinese middle class played a key role in the uptake of “natural, fresh products”.
He said having good quality milk powder was not enough, it was also important to mix it with premium water.
“High pH quality water is a perfect fit of helping the benefits get into the anatomy of a child,” he said.
“It would work really well if it was promoted that way with a quality milk powder.”
“The Chinese are looking for anything that is Western and quality. They search far and wide for fresh products, fresh milks, because it is sometimes hard to get there.”
The proposed deal would result in PH8 exporting its water in 10 L casks along with a small cache of powdered milk to supermarkets in China.
The water produced by PH8 is filtered naturally through black limestone on Yorke Peninsula about 110km west of South Australia’s capital Adelaide.
The water is collected in a large aquifer and picks up trace minerals along the way.
The entire process takes about 12-14 months and results in water with low acidity.
It produces high amounts of potassium, calcium, magnesium as well as silica and selenium.
Dickeson said alkaline water was an in-demand product and was quickly absorbed by the human body.
“Alkaline water when it has a pH level of above 7 – 7.2 means the clusters of hydrogen are not as bunched together and closed up,” he said.
“What other bottled water companies do is use reverse osmosis. What they do is take out all the germs in the water but by doing that they take a lot of good stuff out as well as the bad.”
According to the International Dairy Federation, China imported about 380 Kt of whole milk powder in 2013 and that figure is predicted to rise to almost 500 Kt by 2022.
Founded by Nick Selfe in 2006, PH8’s bottled water is distributed around Australia as well as China and Singapore.
Dickeson said PH8 was also in conversations with local breweries in China to export their water to create high quality craft beer.
Story by Caleb Radford.
