The Tribune

A BAHAMIAN bottled water supplier said summer sales are good with “demand high”, despite a fear of a shortage of one gallon bottles.

Christian Knowles, Aquapure’s chief of operations, told Tribune Business that the shortage of one gallon bottles on the island is temporary and the supply chain bottlenecks for Aquapure, at least, would be sorted out by next week at the very latest.

Mr Knowles was responding to Tribune Business queries that some bottled water suppliers were registering a shortage of one gallon bottles, which he confirmed to be the matter for most of the industry but refused to speak on behalf of the industry as a whole.

Mr Knowles said: “I understand some of the other companies may be having some issues, which is why I think the public is feeling a big shortage on the market. We all have our issues. So you know, we just fix them and we move forward.

“One of the things that we had a problem with in the last couple of weeks is our raw materials and our one gallon supply chain has been somewhat diminished due to machinery issues, but the supply chain is still there. It’s just not as much as it was.”

As a result of the supply chain challenges, Aquapure has to now “allocate” and ration one gallon bottle supplies to long-standing customers and Family Island customers first. “We’re certainly in a situation definitely with that size where we see how much we have to go around and make decisions or where they go,” Mr Knowles said.

He added: “In an ideal world our supply chain would be as robust as it usually is and satisfy more people, but we’ve just been in a little bit of a difficult spot now but hopefully within the next week or two we should have that supply chain back to where we’re accustomed to. These things happen and we have gone through these things in the past and we deal with it as it comes.”

This hotter than usual summer has prompted health authorities to issue hydration advisories to residents and it has sparked a spike in demand for water supplies. “It’s just a matter of having the right schedule and making sure that when we plan to do certain sizes that we do the right amounts before we get on to another size. We can’t fill all the same sizes all the same time we have to switch the lines over,” Mr Knowles said.

Mr Knowles assured that Aquapure is committed to “dealing with these issues in stride”, and ensuring customers are satisfied. Despite the concern over the one gallon bottle shortage in the market generally, Aquapure will have its supply chain challenge sorted out within the next two weeks.

The disruption of a holiday week with a day of production lost also caused issues.

Meanwhile, the Tampico Juice line is also in high demand and has picked up as renovations to the Tampico plant were completed earlier in the year in anticipation for this summer period. “We have revamped all of our equipment and we are back online now,” Mr Knowles assured.