Lifespan Company Limited
Jamaican company prospers by bottling some
of the world’s purest water
Lifespan Company Limited
Jamaican company prospers by bottling some of the world’s purest water
The Blue Mountains are the longest mountain range
in Jamaica, dominating the eastern third of the island. Blue Mountain Peak, at 7402 feet, is Jamaica’s
highest point. Whereas the island’s average rainfall is
77 inches per year, the higher elevations of the Blue
Mountains can catch moisture-laden winds which
can then drop over 200 inches of rain, per year, upon
them. At the bottom of the Blue Mountains, is the
Spring Garden Aquifer. It takes between 14 and 15
years for the rain that falls atop the Blue Mountains to
funnel through the mineral rock within them and into
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the aquifer, below, a waterway that stretches beneath
the land and reaches beyond the Northern Coastal
parish of Portland, Jamaica to the sea.
Spring Garden is also the home of the Lifespan Company Limited. Lifespan bottles the water that gushes
from one of the seven springs it owns that are connected to the Spring Garden Aquifer. The flow rate of
that particular spring is over 900 gallons per minute,
or 473 million gallons of water, per year. But more important than the amount of water that flows from the
aquifer’s many springs, is its quality. Because water
that has passed through, and been filtered by, mineral
rock for a decade and a half is not only extremely pure,
oxygenated, and bacteria-free, it is also highly alkalized. And high alkalinity is prized as a very important
element in the areas of health, vitality, and taste, as
they relate to the bottled water industry.
AT A GLANCE
WHO: Lifespan Company Ltd.
WHAT: A bottler and exporter of natural, alkalized
spring water
Lifespan was founded in 2005 by Devon and Nayana
WHERE: Spring Garden, Buff Bay, Portland,
Williams. Ms. Williams is the company’s Managing DiJamaica
rector. She recounts Lifespan’s genesis and how she
and her husband came to operate, what is today, an
WEBSITE: www.lifespanspringwater.com
enormously successful business enterprise, but one
that started out small and humble, although with high
aspirations: “We wanted to do something that was
beneficial for consumers that was not just about mak- do, which was the bottled water business.” Providening a profit for ourselves,” she says. “And we wanted to tially, Devon Williams’ family had been using the water
create employment. We identified what we wanted to from the spring for many years, but, even so, starting a
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business in Jamaica isn’t easy.
source of bottles, and all that. But we were able to put
the product together and we made our first batch. The
“In Jamaica it’s quite difficult to get financing to start next day we loaded it onto our pickup truck and went
a business,” says Williams. “It was a struggle in the to East Portland, selling to all the little shops along the
beginning to raise the financing. We used our savings; way. We sold ten cases that very first day, and from
we sold what we could to raise whatever we could. We then on we were in business.
sourced two continas, we built a contina, and we built
a 1200 square foot building space. We were able to “Within a year, we were able to purchase a truck and
get start-up equipment from the U.S., which was the the business started increasing because we were able
most basic, semi-automated equipment we could find. to carry more, and we were able to sign onto a major
It took a year to get here. We registered in 2005 and distributor.” Today, Lifespan has several distributors
were able to start trading in 2006.”
who dispense its products throughout Jamaica, the
Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and the
Williams continues the Lifespan story, recounting, United Kingdom.
among other things, how she and Devon had to truck
water to their first “factory” to bottle it: “We did exten- As demand grew, the company outgrew its original fasive research on our own. The whole production ele- cility. In 2010, it acquired 40 acres of land by the water
ment took us a while - to get the labor together, the source and, in 2011, it completed construction on a
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new, 9000 square foot facility, there. Operating costs
were reduced significantly because the new plant was
so close to the spring, and sales increased rapidly,
as well, from over $30 million in 2010, to over $100
million by 2012. Just this year, Lifespan expanded
is warehouse space to over 15,000 square feet and
upgraded to a fully automated system which now involves blowing its own bottles - a feature which could
cut production costs an additional 40 percent. The
company’s 35 employees currently bottle 1600 cases
per day of the 500 milliliter size (with 24 bottles to a
case), and 800 cases of the 5-liter size, as well.
rently, the company is extracting only a fraction of
what its license allows, which means that Lifespan has
a huge potential for further growth.
And it’s that potential that Lifespan wishes to exploit
by touting its water’s healthful qualities, as well as its
higher alkalinity character in relation to the world’s
other bottled waters. According to the Scientific Research Council (SRC) of Jamaica, Lifespan water has
a higher pH value (a measure of acidity or alkalinity in
which the pH of pure water is 7, with lower numbers indicating acidity and higher numbers indicating alkalinity) than all other brands in the western hemisphere.
Lifespan doesn’t have to pay for its water, but it does In fact, the company favorably contrasts it water’s pH
need an extraction license from Jamaica’s Water Re- of 7.9, against world-leading, Fiji water’s pH of 7.5, and
source Authority, allowing it to bottle whatever amount France’s Evian water’s pH of 7.2.
is stipulated on the license. And that amount is based
on its determination of the spring’s rate of flow. Cur- Regarding Lifespan’s health benefits, Williams is clear:
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“Our product is a lifestyle product. It’s healthy and it’s
naturally alkalized, so it neutralizes the acidity in the
body. A lot of consumers are becoming increasingly
aware of going the healthy route. They want to make
sure that they are taking care of their bodies now, so
that they don’t have those medical issues later on in
life. We’re trying to educate the public and the market
that we’re in.” In addition, according to many, alkaline
water not only invigorates the body because it is negatively charged, and thus acts as an antioxidant, reducing cellular and DNA damage, it simply tastes better,
as well.
So, the small company that began a mere decade ago,
with only a husband, wife, one employee, and an old
pickup truck, today stands on the precipice of becoming a major player in a world-wide, 60+ billion-dollar-ayear industry, and a global leader in the marketplace.
And it’s done it in less time than it takes a single drop
of rain to make its way from the top of the Blue Mountains, to that underground spring far, far below.
PREFERRED VENDORS
Massy Distribution (Jamaica) Limited - In 2001, the
Massy Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the
Should Lifespan become able to exploit all of the Caribbean, purchased HD Hopwood, an old and wellsprings on its property, which produce a total 5,500 known distribution company. Today, Massy Distribugallons of water per minute, or 2.9 billion gallons per tion (Jamaica) Limited is one of the largest and leadyear, it could increase its production to 915 million ing distributors and importers of pharmaceutical and
16.9 ounce cases, annually. The maximum, poten- consumer products in Jamaica. It represents over 40
tial revenue from all its springs could then approach multi-national companies and distributes many lead$US6.7 billion per year, which would make the com- ing brands, throughout the island. – www.massydistripany, far and away, the largest high-quality, natural al- bution.com
kaline spring water bottler in the western hemisphere,
and ten times bigger than world-leading Fiji.
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www.lifespanspringwater.com