BOTHELL — In 1997, Ken Uptain was handed a bottle of water that changed his life.
The water didn’t sparkle or contain any exotic flavors. Its special characteristic was pure science: a high pH level, promising better hydration.
Uptain was hooked right away. “I started drinking it, and I felt like this was such a quality product, and it made me feel so much better,” Uptain said. “I decided that this water really had a place in the market.”
He’d been introduced to alkaline water, which is specially filtered and formulated to improve pH.
Uptain, now 63, had just retired from a career selling real estate in Seattle.
So much for retirement. He launched the Bothell-based Essentia Water the following June, in 1998.
Alkaline water has been popular in Japan for decades, but hadn’t infiltrated the American bottled water market yet.
“Back then, 99 percent of waters were sourced from mountain, glaciers, spring, and you essentially ‘make it’ and label it ‘glacier, mountain, spring water,’ ” Uptain said. “This product is one where we take municipal water, we purify it, clean it, and make a product that’s faster hydrating than any other.”
However, municipal water just doesn’t sound as romantic as glacial spring water. Uptain discovered that when the product launched, the public wasn’t interested in experimenting with their water just yet.
“When I launched the brand in June of 1998, within a year I realized that the product was ahead of its time, and that the consumer wasn’t ready for a product like ours,” Uptain said. “I realized I was pushing this thing uphill, and decided to scale back and take orders.”
In the meantime, he made the most out of his retirement. “I played a lot of golf, I played in the stock exchange, I remodeled my house.”
In 2008, Uptain crept back out of his semi-retirement. A 10-year ramp up would make most businesses question their product. Though it took patience, Uptain said he never lost faith.
As he’d expected, widening public perception and popular health trends made the American market more receptive to an alternative bottled water.
A more adventurous consumer led to a boost in popularity of alkaline water, artisan-well water, mineral water and sparkling water. Today’s bottled water brands need to satisfy taste buds to attain loyal customers. Pretty photos of snow-capped mountains on the label no longer cut it. Essentia Water is bottled in suave, black and red 1-liter bottles. Many health and grocery stores carry the water, and it’s readily available online.
Essentia Water’s director of clinical studies and scientific research, Dr. Ralph Holsworth, discovered the water in his local Whole Foods Market in Denver, Colorado.
At the time, Holsworth, used a machine in his office to make his own alkaline water for his family practice patients. He was impressed by the pH level that Essentia Water achieved, and reached out to Uptain in 1998 to get involved.
Holsworth was brought on board to study and develop the product. Now, his patients can’t get enough of it.
Seattle has become the third largest market for Essentia, which has headquarters at 22833 Bothell Everett Highway, Suite. 220. That’s behind Southern California and New York. Uptain wasn’t expecting that degree of local popularity.
“It surprises me because we haven’t done any marketing here in Seattle. We really didn’t have brand ambassadors until just a few months ago,” he said.
Brand ambassadors, who attend marathons and health events, introduce potential customers to the product. This personal contact and word of mouth has become instrumental in growing the brand. Building that relationship is part of Uptain’s personal philosophy.
“I think it’s pretty proven that having one-on-one contact with consumers is the best, most effective way to get the word out,” Uptain explained of the technique. “And we’re starting to get talked about a lot.”
Essentia doesn’t release sales numbers, but the company did say it expects to grow 90 percent in the next year. At the close of 2013, the company employed just eight people. Today, there are 52 employees located throughout the country, with plans to hire an additional 15 more this year.
As far as production, Essentia outsources the work to three bottled beverage co-packers, one each in California, Texas and New Jersey, and is actively seeking additional plant capacity in the Pacific Northwest and the southeast U.S.
Although Uptain is thrilled with Essentia’s success, he doesn’t seem surprised. He never lost faith in the product or the public coming around.
Uptain lives in Bothell with his wife, Cathy, and has no plans to relocate Essentia Water headquarters.
“I don’t think I would live anywhere but the Seattle market,” he said. “I just love this area.”
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