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Bottled water consumption up on heat wave

Sohel Parvez
Bottled water consumption has shot up because of persistent heat wave with some manufacturers facing difficulties in meeting the daily demand, sellers said yesterday.
“Demand for water is huge in the market due to the heat wave. But we cannot meet the high demand due to limitations in our production capacity,” said Md Akhtaruzzaman, marketing manager of Partex Beverage that produces Mum brand bottled water.
The bottled water market, according to industry insiders, is growing up to 20 percent on an average a year amid people's poor confidence in public sector water services and growth in human mobility.
The Mum, a leader in the bottled water market, now supplies between 1.50 lakh and 2.0 lakh bottles a day, said
Akhtaruzzaman.
Akhtar however observed such a demand is temporary and should not be counted as normal.
The market for the bottled water stands between Tk 70 crore and 100 crore, stakeholders said.
v Super Fresh and Mum control over 60 percent of the total bottled water market followed by Jibon, Spa, Acme and Pran, according to producers.
Md Shafiqul Islam Tushar, brand manager of Akij Food & Beverage that has brought Spa brand bottled water, attributed the rise in demand to people's move to take safety measures amid outbreak of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea.
“The demand is on rise for the last one week," he said.
According to TUshar, presently the company is supplying over 1.0 lakh bottles a day, up from about 80,000 bottles earlier.
“The rise in demand has put us in difficulty to meet the daily demand,” said Md Saiful Islam Helaly, general manager in charge of Marketing of Meghna Group of Industries that produces Super Fresh.
Helaly said they are supplying about 1.10 lakh bottles daily.
Mujibur, a hawker who was selling bottled water in Paltan area, was unable to come up with any reasons of such a surge in demand.
“The demand has gone up recently. I sell between 120-144 bottles now up from 50 bottles about a week before," he said.
Mujibur, however, lamented over poor supply of bottled water. "I have been able to buy 2400 bottles only, while my need is for 6,000 bottles for selling in coming days,” he said.
sohel@thedailystar.net