Masafi: Water world

Masafi town which lies 90 minutes north of Dubai was once considered the ‘Wild West’ of the UAE.

Even today, foreboding rocky mountains frame its villages and orchards.

But what Ras Al Khaimah lacks in oil is compensated by its natural mineral water resources discovered by a team of German hydrologists in the late 1970s.

Today these aquifers feed the UAE’s biggest natural mineral water bottling plant.

"We take care of our wells - we don’t use them all at the same time," explained S.M. Usman, Masafi’s plant manager, during a tour which is part of the first Beverage Middle East Congress, organised by industry consultants Zenith International.

To ensure the wells are not overexploited, each well has a timing device such that only four pumps out of a dozen or so work simultaneously, he explained.

The 25-hectare Masafi Co LLC bottling plant produces more than 1.5 million litres daily from wells that go down between 800 feet and 1,000 feet in Masafi valley on the road to Dibba, Fujairah.

Next month, the plant is set to activate its fourth water bottling line, raising its capacity by more than 25 per cent (18,000 bottles more) per hour, from the current 70,000 bottles per hour.

To secure its ground water sources, the company (which is part of the Al Ghurair Group) also acquired an additional 12 hectares from neighbouring plots, said Usman.

Masafi Co LLC, now three decades old, claims a 40 per cent share of the bottled mineral water market in the UAE and is the second-biggest water bottler in the Gulf.

With its simple "Fi Masafi" campaign, it now generates about 80 per cent of the company’s business from the Gulf.

But the company is also expanding to other countries and has branched out into flavoured water, juice and tissues.

Masafi Co aims to sell 18 million litres of bottled mineral water to Japan alone this year.

It already exports its water to more than 20 countries.

The company currently employs about 1,000 people, including the 200 at its Masafi bottling plant.

"We are not just a UAE company," Masafi’s chief executive Ashraf Abushady earlier told an industry publication.

Liquid facts

According to consultancy firm Zenith International every UAE resident consumes about 220 litres of bottled water per year, higher than Saudi Arabia and Portugal put together.

Retailing at Dh2 per litre, bottled water here is more expensive than petrol.

About 60 per cent of bottled water is now sold in bulk sizes or the 19-litre (5 gallon) re-usable bottle for dispensers.

In 2005, 168 billion litres valued at about Dh308.7 billion of bottled water was produced in the world.