By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
Bottled water suppliers yesterday estimated that business had increased 100 per cent ahead of Hurricane Matthew, with one manufacturer estimating it was moving “three times’ more product than normal”.
Christian Knowles, manager at Aquapure, told Tribune Business that sales had picked up 100 per cent “at the very least”, as persons sought to stock up on bottled water ahead of the storm.
“We are very, very busy. We are running at full speed production, and we are getting our bottles out as fast as we can make them and we are very busy outside at the depot,” he confirmed.
“I would say business has picked up 100 per cent at the very least. We are probably moving three times’ the amount of product we would usually move.”
Lauren Wong, operations manager at Chelsea’s Choice, told Tribune Business that the heavy influx of customers began on Friday.
“Unlike the other water companies we have our own water park, and it has proven to be beneficial in terms of us being able being able to serve our customers more efficiently,” she said.
“The traffic is kind of insane at the moment, but we are trying to manage it as best as we can. We have made provisions for these types of events, so we are trying to ensure that things are running as smoothy as they can.”
Ms Wong added: “We started to see more of an influx on Friday. We want to ensure that our customers are well prepared. We understand that water is absolutely vital, so we are doing the best we can to serve our customers right now.”
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 2 months ago
These two bottled water production companies, Aquapure and Chelsea's Choice, claim in the marketing of their grossly over-priced products that no one in their right mind would drink the water produced by the government's Water & Sewerage Corporation. Then, when a hurricane comes, like Matthew right now, the public finds that the inability of these companies to ramp up production to meet the greatly increased demand results in serious price gouging and bottled water shortages at the usual distribution outlets. The Aquapure and Chelsea truck crews are underpaid opportunists who make a small fortune for themselves in a time of crisis by selling their product to the highest bidder with cash on the street. Their respective employers are not too bothered as long as they get their minimum cut of the cashflow based on the number of bottles sold by their truck crews. Neither company is interested in delivering bottled water for coupons in a time of crisis to their loyal year round customers. Why should they be, they have already received the cash for the coupons and now have an opportunity to boost their cashflow. The loyal year-round customers who hold the coupons already paid for get royally screwed whenever a hurricane heads our way. My entire neighbourhood, and no doubt many other neighbourhoods, have gone without this week's expected home delivery of water simply because we are stupid loyal year-round customers who take delivery against presentation of coupons that we long ago paid for. My spouse and I are so vex about this penalizing of loyal customers that we have decided to buy imported water once our current supply of coupons runs out. And the truck crew that delivers our bottled water won't be getting the generous cash gift they have grown accustomed to receiving at Christmas time. Government needs to give serious consideration to introducing legislation that protects the public from bottled water shortages and price gouging in times of a crisis, like the one facing us with the approach of Hurricane Matthew!
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