About us

The Belu story so far…Inspired by the UN Global Compact
Belu was originally inspired by the launch of the United Nation’s Global Compact in 2001. This was Kofi Annan’s initiative to engage the largest businesses in the world to help solve the largest social and environmental problems in the world. One of Belu’s founding members, Reed Paget, had attended the launch event as a journalist and was inspired by the concept of “using capitalism to change the world”. Paget decided to try putting this idea into practice. Instead of sitting on the sidelines and merely reporting on how businesses could be doing a better job in improving the world, he decided to start his own company with a social and environmental objective at its core.

Paget saw business as having the financial, entrepreneurial and human resources to tackle problems in a way that governments, charities and NGO’s might not. This included access to capital, a risk-taking entrepreneurial approach to solving problems and many of the smartest people on the planet. He felt that if we do not engage such resources in solving global problems we are dramatically reducing our chances of success.

After some contemplation, and being joined by a number of friends, the business decided upon was a socially benevolent and environmentally-responsible bottled water company. Given that a quarter of the people on earth do not have access to clean water, this certainly seemed like an issue needed such attention. To address this problem, the decision was made to give 100% of the profits made through selling a bottle of water to fund clean water projects around the world. The group also felt a bottled water brand could be used to raise public awareness to the water crisis. Last but not least, they saw an opportunity to try to manufacture and distribute bottled water in a more socially and environmentally-sustainable manner.

No one in the initial team had any bottled water experience. But as it was seemingly a simple product to produce, the team felt that the ethical brand value would create an advantage in the market. The team did expect, however, that they would need to find water industry experts to help successfully compete within the market.

Business beginnings: From a spring…
The team had no experience in this industry (or in running a business), so they bought quite a few books including how to write a business plan, create a financial model, trademark a name, set up a company, create a brand identity, etc. They also set about finding a water source. After four months they had a business plan and financial model in place and began seeking seed capital. Raising capital from the Idyll Foundation was the first introduction to the rigors of fund raising as a business. In the process, this investor queried many assumptions, plans and numbers. However, after a few months of discussions, they came to believe Belu was serious in its intentions and had at least some of the skills needed to carry it off. By the end of 2002, Belu had received its first loan!

To a trickle…
With funds in hand, the business needed to invent a brand name, design a bottle, secure a manufacturing deal, and start selling.

Coming up with a name was a massive challenge. There are roughly 200,000 words in an average person’s vocabulary but over 2 million words trademarked. All the obvious names were trademarked already, so the team had to think fairly laterally to come up with something innovative.

They decided on “Belu” as it is short, simple, sounds like “blue”, allows use of the blue colour palette, and the root of the word is the Latin for “beauty”. If Belu is to protect and provide clean water to the world, the starting point is to remind people what a beautiful substance water is and encourage people to start putting the value on it that it deserves.

A lot of attempts were made to arrive at the ‘perfect’ glass bottle. Finally, the team went one of the most up-market product design houses in the UK, Lewis Moberly. They explained they didn’t have proper funding but needed a bottle design. On a friendly deal, they created Belu’s existing, elegant design.

Meanwhile, Belu needed a source of water with some marketable value. Many marketing experts encouraged Belu to ignore the quality of the water and to just focus on the ethical selling point. But the team were concerned that many consumers would still look after their own interests first (in this case finding the best water) and therefore Belu needed to have something of quality to sell. The two biggest competitors, Evian and Highland Springs, traded on the fact that their sources were from the tallest mountains in Europe and the UK respectively. Belu knew it could not out “height” them so decided to search for the best source it could find in the UK (not coincidentally, this was also more carbon-friendly than shipping water from France).

There are more than 70 sources in the UK and Reed Paget decided to visit them all to choose the best one. After seeing many factories and tasting water that smelled of sulphur and much worse, Reed came up with a short list of a few great UK water sources.

Belu settled on a deal with Wenlock Water in a pristine area of Shropshire to produce the 750ml bottle (Belu added 330ml later).

The next challenge was getting to the “proof of concept” stage; Belu needed to show it could sell the product. Belu had found an ally in the marketing company “?What If!” who arranged a meeting with Waitrose and helped develop the brand identity. The sales presentation was successful and Belu won its first major account. The next dilemma was that Belu did not have enough money to buy the first container of glass bottles for the first order and had to find new funding.

After contacting at least 30 social and environmental funding organizations, Belu met with Gordon Roddick. After a period of due diligence, Gordon graciously agreed to fund the first production run.

Belu delivered into Waitrose in May 2004. Soon after that the team began working on the website, administrative systems, additional manufacturing, sales, water projects and finding additional growth capital. With a team of just two, it was hard to cover all bases. So the team also started seeking management with experience in the bottled water industry.

Over the next 12 months, Belu made incremental success in all the aforementioned areas and hired a third employee in the spring of 2005.

To a stream…
That summer, Belu began seeing much more success in sales. Belu opened in Nobu Restaurant (a trendy London-based establishment) and Goldman Sachs was invited to serve water backstage at Live 8. The team was finding that Belu appeals to people across the social, economic and philosophic spectrum.

To a river…
Reed’s main focus at this time was finding another bottling facility capable of producing corn-based BIO bottles. After a lot of testing and tinkering with bottle blowers, hoppers and whatever else constitutes a production line, the Belu team found a great partner, again in the wonderful hills of Shropshire.

The very idea of a plastic bottle that returns to the soil was inspiring and Belu received heavy media coverage and subsequent interest. The team also made sure Belu was “discovered” by younger generations by selling into over 20 music festivals.

In July of 2006, Reed read that Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” would be coming to the UK that autumn. Reed had already intended to make Belu a Carbon Neutral product, but this film’s arrival seemed like the perfect opportunity for making a splash. In fact, Belu agreed a joint promotional deal with the film’s distributors, mentioning their film on the bottle and getting reduced-cost in-theatre advertising for an animated Belu film about “climate conscious” shopping. To promote Belu’s status as the first bottled water not to contribute to climate change, Belu created the “Penguin Approved” product certification stamp.

As a result of these activities in 2006 as well as greater focus on sales, Belu grew by 550%.