A new production line that will allow more than doubling production – and, hopefully, turnover – will allow Água de Monchique to «dispute leadership in the national market» and further expand its business beyond -borders.
The Algarve company, located in Caldas de Monchique, from where the water that gives it its name flows, has an ongoing investment of 7,6 million euros, which should be “completely executed by September. It is already underway and we believe it will be in full production by then», assured Vítor Hugo Gonçalves, executive director of Águas de Monchique.
The company's manager spoke with journalists on the sidelines of a visit by João Neves, Secretary of State for Economy, to Sociedade da Água de Monchique, who Sul Informação followed. The member of the Government went to Caldas to get to know “this company, which is already old, but which has very interesting investment projects for modernization and expansion, something that is very important for the region, particularly for Monchique”.
According to Vítor Hugo Gonçalves, the project that is being implemented «is fundamental for the viability and future of this company. The main objective is to increase production, but not only. It also aims to increase production efficiency and energy savings, in order to make our brand grow and fulfill our strategic objective, which is to compete for leadership in the national market».
«This investment will more than double the production capacity. But, more than that, what matters to us is to be able to give our consumer a higher quality product, with a different image, with other aesthetic features - and the water will be the same, with the quality that suits it. is recognized and with the differentiation of being hyper-alkaline», he added.
On the other hand, several new features are in the pipeline. «We are going to enter a new market segment, which will be bottled water in glass. Starting next year, we will have Agua de Monchique bottled in glass, which is something the market has been asking us for for a long time», said the manager of the Algarve company.
Currently, the production capacity of Água de Monchique is at 9 bottles per hour. With the new equipment, which has already been ordered and should be installed «in July», the daily production capacity «will rise to 23 thousand bottles».
This increase will also be reflected in the turnover and, naturally, in the company's income, bearing in mind that Água de Monchique “only doesn't sell anymore, because there is no available supply”.
"Right now, we are very limited by the operational structure that we have and this is what has determined our stagnation in terms of production and turnover, compared to 2017. We reached the maximum peak that year and exhausted our installed capacity . Now, only with this investment will we be able to surpass the current numbers», explained Vítor Hugo Gonçalves.
The current production line is the same as the new management of Água de Monchique inherited in 2010, when he acquired the company. Even so, it was possible to exponentially improve the company's performance, especially in the last four years, as shown by the numbers.
In terms of turnover, the company went from around 1,5 million euros in 2010 to more than 9 million in 2017. In 2018, the numbers dropped a little, due to the forced stoppage, caused by the fire in Monchique.
There was also an exponential increase in profits, of an impressive 460%, between 2014 and 2018, a year in which the company recorded income in the order of 3,33 million euros. It had been around 697 thousand euros in 2011.
Vítor Hugo Gonçalves took the opportunity to point out that these increases were reflected in the payroll, with workers' salaries “increasing, on average, 40% in the last three years”.
And, bearing in mind that being a leader at the national level is an assumed goal, the company's directors are also happy with the rise in market share from 3,2% to 8,2%, in Portugal, in just three years.
And how was this possible? «Necessity sharpens the ingenuity. And we, in 2013, clearly saw that the strategy that the company was following was not, at all, the right one – as the results showed», said the executive director of Água de Monchique.
This reality led those responsible for the company to “stop to think. We created a strategic vision for the medium/long term, thought about the brand and looked at what is different from our competition and verified that we have a special and unique product – a hyper-alkaline water, with a natural Ph of 9,5 and highly mineralized,” he explained.
With these assets, Água de Monchique thought “in a way to communicate and get this message to the market in a more creative way and to explain that all water is not the same. And I think we managed to make the consumer look at this product as not just water».
Vítor Hugo Gonçalves made a point of stressing that «the strategic vision of Águas de Monchique is to privilege the national market, but always looking to foreign markets».
«Today we have a global market, distances are getting shorter. It would not make sense to make such high investments without having this strategic vision of selling abroad and, above all, dissipating the brand name and creating notoriety in international markets», he considered.
And one of the most desirable targets is China, a country "which absorbs a large part of world production, especially in terms of consumer goods."
“It's a fast-growing market, with rising yields and hungry for quality products. In this way, it is a natural market for us, where we are already very well placed and which we just don't explore anymore because we don't have the capacity to offer», he guaranteed.
“But we are already well cemented in China. Our brand is already recognized in the Chinese market, we just need to make this leap in quantitative terms in terms of production», he said.
Even because “the demand for alkaline waters in China is very high and natural alkaline waters are very rare in the world”.
What exists a lot in that country is artificial alkaline water. “Our product is easily recognized there as something with great quality. And it even causes some surprise, because they are used to artificial and come across a natural one and are very curious», concluded Vítor Hugo Gonçalves.
Photos: Hugo Rodrigues|Sul Informação
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