CLINTON MOODLEY
NOW you can have seawater in a sachet.
You heard right, an Eastern Cape businessman has been granted approval to sell seawater and will extract his first batch at the end of January.
The founder of Port Alfred Beverage, Guy Snyman, got the idea to package seawater around five months ago, and decided to send an application form to the Eastern Cape province for permission to extract the water.
While he describes it as a long process, he is excited about the opportunities it will bring.
He already has a buyer in Johannesburg and received calls from people living in Limpopo and the Free State.
The process to extract the water involves a 1000 litre pump and a 95 metre suction line. The water will then be taken to his company, which is a 4 kilometre drive away from the beach. Once at the factory, a machine will pour the water into the sachets and a sprinkle of sea sand will be added into the mix.
“During a conversation with one of my friends, he suggested that I take sea water to Johannesburg. I have heard that many people travel far and wide to find seawater for its medicinal purposes. I believe that it is a long awaited product on the market and something that is needed.
“I know that there will be naysayers, but they are just jealous that they did not think about the idea first,” he said.
Snyman will sell a sachet to distributors for around R15-R20 a litre.
“I only received an approval letter on December 23 so everything is very new, but I am looking forward to introducing this product to South Africa, and hopefully soon take this brand throughout Africa,” he said.
He said there was thousands traditional healers in Gauteng alone, who each handed out seawater to their clients.
“The market is there and we will continue to build on it. In five years time, I would have hoped to have expanded and to have added a few machines,” said Snyman.