How is spring water bottled?

Have you ever been curious about how spring water gets bottled? Do you imagine someone standing knee-deep in a crystal-clear river, downriver from the most stunning waterfalls, as they scoop each individual bottle under the water to catch the crispest, most refreshing water? Well, as ideal as that would sound, imagine trying to bottle 1000’s of individual bottles, and 15L Coolers that way!

While each company might have a different process for how they bottle their water, there are certain processes in which they all agree on.

Bottle Preparation

The first step in any process should start with a clean slate, which is most important when providing clean drinking water. Bottle preparation involves cleaning and sanitising bottles, checking for any defects, and making sure that the bottles are meeting the company’s quality standards.

Filling the bottles

This process can vary slightly depending on whether the company has moved into automation of this process, or if they still fill the bottles by hand. But alas, waterfalls are still not a part of this process! Most companies these days fill via automation, so a machine does the work here, which minimises the chance of contamination after all our cleaning efforts.

Cap it all off

Once the bottles are full of refreshing, clear spring water, the bottles are capped with a machine that perfectly seals the bottle. This whole process is completed via machines, which again help reduce any possibility of contaminating the water.

Label it

Once the bottles are all filled and sealed, it’s time to put our message on the outside of the bottle! Usually, Spring Water Bottles are labelled with the Company Brand Name, Product Information, and any other required information such as nutritional facts and best-by dates.  For instance, with Cairns Natural Spring Water we include details on our smaller 600 ml bottles about how our water is naturally high in silica, is 100% Australian Owned and Operated, and how our packing is made from recyclable packaging with low carbon footprint. On our larger re-fillable 15L bottles, we opt to include our Typical Analysis Mg/L:

Don’t forget, quality over quantity!

You might think the bottles are ready to be shipped from here, but we still have one more step in the process of our water – Quality Control. You might think this isn’t an everyday occurrence and something that happens from time to time, but there are several moments throughout the bottling process where Quality Control steps in.

Before we even bottle the Spring Water, we go through rigorous testing of the source water to make sure there are no contamination issues, and that our Spring Water meets the high-quality standards our company upholds. We look to make sure there are no microbial contaminants, or chemical impurities, and at other details such as pH levels and mineral contents.

During the bottling process, water testing is completed at various stages, to ensure no contamination has taken place, mineral contents and pH levels are within the ranges they should be, and the water is still meeting the quality standards.

So now we have the bottles all filled, sealed, and labelled. How could we possibly do another quality control?

Crack it open

The last thing you want when cracking open a bottle of water to quench your thirst is to see, smell or taste something that is not quite right! So before we ship off our water around town, we need to make sure that the water in the bottle still meets the standards governed by the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, issued by the National Health and Medical Research Council. These last checks not only look for taste, odour, and appearance, but also to ensure the levels of minerals are within range, and that no microbiological or chemical contamination has occurred.

Once we are satisfied that our Spring Water meets all the standards our Company upholds, it’s time to get it ready to be packaged and delivered – right to your door.

Are you ready to crack open a bottle of Cairns Natural Spring Water? Contact us Today or Order your water online.