Nestle (Thai) to beat Singha in bottled drinking water

"We want to double our Pure Life business in Thailand in the next three to four years," said Monday Prayad Anuchiracheewa, executive director - water, Nestle Thai, who look after the company's water business for about six months.

Before the water business, Prayad was sales director at the food company for five years and overseeing all food products, including Nescafe, Milo and Coffee Mate.

"I have set my primary mission to grow the drinking water business through the adding of functional benefits to the products to provide higher health benefits, in addition to just hydration," said Prayad, adding that such functional ingredients, such as collagen or fluoride, would be added to the drinking water products in the near future to cater health benefits to individual consumers, respectively beauty skin for women or strong teeth for kids.

He said that Nestle is studying a new investment to set up second manufacturing facility for its bottled drinking water products in Thailand.

"We are making feasibility study for a potential location for the opening of second production plant for our drinking water product. The move is after our first plant at Pho Sam Ton district in Ayutthaya has reached its full capacity of about 200 million and 300 million bottles of drinking water per annum.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn