How to get started with Mineral Water Plant with low cost

What do you want to do? Want to open a water plant business? Okay, want to set up a mineral water plant or a packaged drinking water plant? Confused!! No problem, I’ll help you out.

People get often get confused to take packaged water as same as packaged drinking water. That’s not the case. Not every bottle packaged bottle that you see is not a mineral water bottle. Although both are safe drinking water but there is difference between them.

If I may to ask you to name some mineral water brands then I am 100% sure that you will say Bisleri, Aquafina, etc. Know the difference between them is the first and foremost thing that you need to know in order to analyze both the option to decide which option you will choose to start your water plant business plan.

Difference between Mineral water and packaged drinking water?

Simply put mineral water is a mineral replenished drinking water. The water used in mineral water plant is sourced from natural water resource. It doesn’t undergo any treatment except few authorized processes.

There is difference between natural water and tap water. The tap water that you is supplied to a household is sourced from reservoirs, rivers, lakes, etc. This water is processed and tested at treatment plants before they are supplied to our household. While mineral water is sourced from natural resources of water, pure and rich wells, waterfalls that have plenty of natural minerals like calcium, iron, barium, magnesium, etc. Brands of mineral water that are available in the market are Kwa, Himalayan, Catch, Bisleri Vedika, etc. Price of mineral water ranges from Rs.25 to Rs.125 per litre.

Packaged drinking water is water that needs treatment and undergoes various processes before it become fits for human consumption like filtration and Reverse osmosis. Brands of packaged drinking water are Bisleri, Aquafina, Nestle water and DANONE Aqua, etc. Price of packaged drinking water is around Rs. 15 to Rs. 20 per litre.

This is enough to clear your confusion about mineral water business and packaged drinking water.

Now if you are contemplating about starting mineral water business but don’t know how to start mineral water plant then I am going lay down a mineral water plant business plan for you:

1. Planning

As a beginner you can make well thought out small scale mineral water project plan taking all the considerations involved in water plant business. You need to get permit or license to operate from legal authorities concerned, determine location, machinery and equipments, labor requirement, cost of production, and calculate all finances involved, marketing techniques, and conduct market research of the established water plant business to evaluate all the aspects of the business. After determining all the aspects, it is upon you whether you want to set up a small mineral water plant or a large water plant business. It is advisable for beginners to first make small scale mineral water plant project report.

2. Acquire legal permit

To establish your water manufacturing plant you need get the license from local authorities for that first of all, set up legal entity for your business meaning is it a proprietorship firm, one person company, private limited company, partnership firm or limited liability partnership.

Next thing is to do SSI registration. It is a Small scale industry registration from Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium enterprises. This is done to avail benefits from ministry’s launched schemes and subsidies, credit at low rate, excise exemption. Registration can be done by providing business address, license copy, machinery purchased bill proof, partnership deed and copies of sales and purchase bill. Although it not legally binding to get yourself registered but registration will only reap you benefits.

Get your business name trademark registered to protect your brand in the market.

Pest control certificate is important too.

Next is, BIS registration. The Bureau of Indian standard registration is mandatory for Mineral water business plan, to get it registered which provides a third party guarantee of safety, quality and reliability of the product taking into consideration health of the customers.

Obtaining pollution control certification from the local authorities.

Water testing reports are important. You can get it checked by any state or local water testing laboratory and generate your reports from BIS

Step up the mineral water plant

The next step is setting up of the mineral water plant. It is the most painstaking task; check the PH value of the underground water. It should have a desirable pH value; else the cost may get substantially high. Make sure that the plant complies with all the rules and regulation of the local authorities. Make sure that location has road accessibility, regular electricity and water supply, etc. Prefer setting up your mineral water business near to market area so that overhead cost of transportation can be reduced.

1. Procurement of Machinery

Make sure the availability of proper equipments and machinery necessary for smooth running of operations. The scale of operation and the different packaging requirement such as small pouch, 1 litre bottle or 2 litre water or 20 litre can, etc decides the type of machinery and number of machinery required. Machinery requirement also depend upon the type of plant if it is fully automatic or semi automatic.

2. Manufacturing process

The water that you need to treat could be sourced from municipal supply, lakes, bore well, etc. Next step is to store water in large tanks. Then the water undergoes several water treatment processes for purification such as Sand filtration, coagulation process chlorination of water, carbon filtration de-chlorination, water softening process, reverse osmosis, ozone disinfection, UV sterilization. Then this purified water is then testing in their own laboratories according to the water quality parameters to ensure the safety and quality of the water. After the tests are passed then only job is to get water packaged in bottles, cans and pouches, this work is performed by machinery and labor.

3. Determine the prices of water

The price is decided upon taking all the cost involved in consideration such as leasing of land, working capital, installation of machinery and furniture, salary of labor employed, raw material expenses, transportation cost, electricity and water cost, marketing expenses, other miscellaneous expenses. Consider your profit margin accordingly. Don’t price your product too high that it became difficult for you to even take out your production cost. Set the price in a way that your production cost is covered, you get the profit margin and the price is competitive enough to counter the already established brands in the market.

4. Distribution network and Marketing

Create a strong distribution network with the help of distributors and dealers. Identify the potential customers, in case of mineral water it is urban and semi-urban cities; identify potential intermediaries, communicate and expand your distribution network, make sure that your product’s presence is felt in the market.

Marketing plays an important role in the product expansion. You can use various marketing strategies such as advertising, product campaigning on TV, radio stations and social media platforms like Facebook Ads, email marketing, in-store promotion, share customer reviews on your business website or use any other strategy you can think of.

I hope the article may have justice to your question of ‘How to start mineral water plant?’