Something in the Water Episode 4: Aava in India - Sustainability in Context

In this enlightening episode of "Something in the Water," host Elena Berg takes us on a hydrating journey from the UK to India, focusing on Avanti Mehta and her family's brand, Aava. Discover the serendipitous origins of Aava, whose water can be traced back to India's oldest mountain range, offering naturally alkaline water. Elena and Avanti delve into the complexities of water sustainability, the impact of packaging, and the crucial role of trust in bottled water. They explore how Aava balances tradition, wellness, and environmental responsibility, reflecting the podcast's theme of local solutions to global water challenges. 

Episode Guest: Avanti Mehta 

Find more information about Avanti Mehta here.

More information about Aava here.

More information about the episode and Something in the Water here.

Episode Transcript and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted by Elena Berg

Written and produced by Elena Berg and Clark Marchese

Audio Editing by Clark Marchese

Cover art by Sarah Glavan

Theme Music by Josef Salvat

[00:00:15.410] - Elena Berg

Hello, everyone. It's Elena Berg, your host of something in the water, the podcast where we dive into the world of water. From luxury mineral springs to the challenges of access, environment, and industry for a deeper understanding of what we drink. Welcome back to something in the water. I'm very excited to have you here. It's now our fourth episode together. This podcast has been so much fun to make, so I really, truly appreciate each of you listening. Also, I'm a total water nerd, so I just love getting to talk about it all the time. Everything we do is because of water. Everything we are is because of water. And I love having conversations about things that help us appreciate water in a different way. All right, let's get started. In addition to being foundational to everything we do and are, water is constantly moving. Thanks to evaporation, condensation, and precipitation and a variety of other planetary forces, water travels great distances. Here's a fun fact. According to research funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, in a 100-year period, a water molecule will spend 98 years in one of our oceans, 20 months frozen in ice, about two weeks in our freshwater systems, and less than seven days in the atmosphere.

[00:01:36.450] - Elena Berg

Barring a few water molecules that have escaped our atmosphere, almost all of the water that's ever been on Earth is still here today. And those molecules will always be here, barring an alien invasion or some other plotline in a Sci-Fi movie about the world ending. But even though we have so much water on the planet, when we see where water spends most of its life, it's easy to see how our collective access to water comes from a limited number of places. It's not so easy to drink water if it's salty, dirty, solid, gaseous, or deep underground. On top of that, the water we might want to drink may be on the other side of the world. Many water issues are local, so today we're going to make like water and do a bit of traveling ourselves. This is the second episode in a sort of arc we're doing, profiling different small water farmers from around the world. Last time, we talked to Doran Binder, who runs crag in the United Kingdom, and today we'll have a chat with Avanti Mehta, who represents Ava, a natural mineral water company in India. While a water molecule can't travel on a cloud from England to Kerala all on its own in a matter of minutes, cloud technology allows us to.

[00:02:48.130] - Elena Berg

Please forgive the pun. Actually, though, this idea brings up a big theme for today and for this arc, which is sustainability in context. The water in one place is not the water in another, which means that water usage, infrastructures, management, access, etc. Look different in different places. In the interview ahead, I got to talk to Avanti about how Aava got started, water access and trust in India, and what sustainability looks like in her context.

[00:03:35.730] - Elena Berg

Great. All right, we are recording.

[00:03:37.790] - Elena Berg

So I want to welcome you. Avanti, thanks so much for joining us on this adventure. First I want to do is let you introduce yourself a little bit before we kind of dive into talking about your origin story and how you got involved in the water industry.

[00:03:50.530] - Avanti Mehta

So my name is Avanti, I'm from India. I am a certified water sommelier. And I got into this industry kind of by default because my family owns a natural mineral water brand in India called Aava. For the longest time, I wasn't planning on doing this. I was living my own life. I was in advertising, I was in fashion journalism. And then Covid hit and I was back home and I was within this ecosystem that my family had sort of fostered over the last 30 years. Because where we live and where our water is sourced is relatively close by, just about like a kilometer away. And when Covid hit, we were an essential service. People were in hospitals. There was a lot of exodus of people trying to go back home. Nobody knew what was happening. People were sick. And from our point of view, it was like we need as many people to have access to clean, safe, good, healthy drinking water.

[00:04:51.370] - Elena Berg

Yeah. I think we all might have some horrible flashbacks to that time. I don't think most people spend much time thinking about their water in the best of times, but we can see how important it is in a crisis like Covid. Even during that time, I don't know that water was where people's minds were going. In the US, for example, I remember when there was this huge scramble for toilet paper, which in hindsight, and actually at the time even was quite silly. But in a time where people can't really leave their homes safely and systems may not be running the way they used to, water is something that really can't be taken for granted. So the intersection of water and health also really intrigues me. We've talked about it a bit on the show, and obviously, when you need water, you'll take anything you can get. But I know that Aava is quite a unique water. I've tasted it myself, and now you are yourself a water Sommelier. Was there a point when you shifted from, okay, we need to get this fundamental resource to as many people as possible, to getting more interested in the nuances of water.

[00:05:53.840] - Avanti Mehta

And at that point in time, I kind of asked myself, does it really matter if they get this water? Does it really matter if they get this particular water versus any bottled water? Because there are tons of brands out there. That's when I actually started understanding the value of water and wellness, the value of minerals. Now I am a certified water. Somalia. Decided to study about it, know about it. Until I became one. I thought my dad, who kind of started this, was a crazy person. Now I think I'm as crazy as he is because I kind of share that passion.

[00:06:26.030] - Elena Berg

I'm curious. I'm going a little bit off script already here. I'm curious to know why your father got interested in it, because 2005 was pretty early. So you and I are both. We both had training, but it's a relatively recent trend.

[00:06:40.240] - Avanti Mehta

Right.

[00:06:40.490] - Elena Berg

You and I are sort of one of the early crops of water Somalias through the Fine Water Academy, where I think you also got your training there. Is that correct?

[00:06:48.960] - Avanti Mehta

Yes.

[00:06:49.700] - Elena Berg

So for our listeners who remember from episode one, the fine Water Society wasn't founded until 2008, and they were some of the pioneers. So Aava was really ahead of the game. So what inspired him to get into this world?

[00:07:03.640] - Avanti Mehta

That's actually what I would call serendipity. My dad used to actually work with marble and granite. So we had a granite processing unit, which was close to our home, and that was life. And they had a water filter there in the plant for everyone to kind of fill their bottles and drink their water. And the people who used to work there used to keep removing the water filter. So one of the managers complained to my dad, because in India, I know abroad, you do have the privilege of turning on your taps and having access to water that you can drink without any sort of filtration or purification. That's not a reality for a large part of India. Most homes, approximately 44% homes in India, have some sort of RO or purification system, which is done over and above what a municipal supply of water that is given to you. So the man complained to my dad, and he's like, they keep removing the water filter. I think somebody's going to fall sick if they drink this water. And then the workers there were like, honestly, have you tried it? It's like the sweetest water you've ever tasted in your life.

[00:08:12.010] - Avanti Mehta

It's the best. It's better than anything that we've ever had before. And why would you purify this water? So my dad's like, are you joking? So he tried it. So while most people might have a story where they went around searching for the water and the origin. My dad's story kind of started backward. He tasted this water and he's like, this is something really special. A lot of hydrogeologists came down. So in India, the natural mineral water licensing is particularly tough to get. You have about, like, 56 parameters that kind of need to match for a natural mineral water between the origin and the source, and only then can you get the license. I think it was an effort of two years tracing the origin, and so they kind of tapped the origin to the Aravali mountain range, which happens to be the world's oldest four mountain range. It's older than the Himalayas, it's older than the Alps, and it's about 90 km away from where we are situated. So that's the origin.

[00:09:12.930] - Elena Berg

That's such a cool story. I think you had the right word when you said serendipity. So Aava has been around for quite a while. I know that you were quite active in providing water during the pandemic, but Aava is also an internationally recognized product. Where else does your water go?

[00:09:29.140] - Avanti Mehta

Today we service most of the big international and local brands that are in India, from the St. Regis to Marriott to most of the airlines that fly out of India. We go international through the airlines. We have Aava being served as the president of India in their state. So one of the key features of what makes Aava unique as a natural mineral water is the fact that it is naturally alkaline. That means the minerals in it give it a natural ph of eight and above. And it's also got silica in it, which is a mineral that kind of lends sweetness and a smooth mouthfeel, which is what sets it apart on an epicurean and tasting level as well. Yes.

[00:10:07.070] - Elena Berg

I tried Aava for the first time last spring when we were at the taste awards in Athens. It's very smooth, and you can really pick up on the silica. I'm curious, can you tell us what Aava means?

[00:10:19.160] - Avanti Mehta

Aava actually means the angel of water in the religion that we follow, which is Zoroastrianism, it's one of the oldest religions in the world, and we kind of worship elements of nature. We don't worship a deity per se, but we worship nature. So Aava is the angel of water. At that point in time, all the brands in the market had a very distinct blue identity. The color blue was kind of co-opted by the bottle water industry largely. And he's like, no, our ethos will be green, because we don't do RO, we don't do any wastage of water like Aava will have a green identity.

[00:10:56.650] - Elena Berg

So this is something I see certainly not with the majority of all bottles of water, but especially in these smaller mineral water companies. Is this effort to be more green? I guess despite the fact that really any business does have an environmental footprint, it's a paradox that all businesses across all industries have to confront. So it's a conversation we should be having too. The main critiques of our industry is, number one, obviously, packaging, but also water use gets brought up a lot too.

[00:11:28.540] - Elena Berg

So I wanted to ask a question about bottled water. And in the environmental world, bottled water is very easy to. Easy to hate is sort of one way I've put it, a lot. And it's an easy target because it feels like you're putting packaging around something that shouldn't be packaged, that should be freely available to all people. But in a general sense, how do you justify or think through this notion of bottling water?

[00:11:55.490] - Avanti Mehta

I think I've spent easily two or three years trying to articulate it. So while I was reading about water, I realized everything takes water. What is Coca Cola? It's 80% water. The t-shirt that you're wearing, if you even wear organic hemp, I'm saying don't wear cotton because cotton t-shirts take 1500 liters of water to make. Even if you're wearing an organic hemp t-shirt that took 500 liters of water just to make, you are eating avocado. It took 70 liters of water to grow one. Avocado water is actually one of the most used resource in literally everything that we do. Companies like Coca Cola, like Ford, like IBM, have developed technologies to kind of recycle their own water and use it because that's how they kind of cut down on costs. Water that's natural, untouched fresh water, as we would call it, is probably the highest form of water that exists compared to recycled water or water that's been distilled and all of that. And then what are you using that waterfall like? Suppose you have access to fresh water. Are you using it to, I don't know, bathe? Are you using it to water your plants?

[00:13:09.760] - Avanti Mehta

Are you using it to make clothes? And when I look at that, honestly, I have access to a source of freshwater and I am giving it to others to drink. And that is something that is going into a human being's body and hydrating them and giving them health, wellness, taste and experience. That to me, is much better than making a t-shirt out of it. I think fresh water should be used for drinking. I think that to me, has the highest level of value that you can give fresh water because it is supporting life except things. It's problematic to drink bottled water because all water is the same and that you can get it in a tap. So you don't need to drink bottled water. But I beg to differ. When you come from places where you don't have access to clean, healthy, safe drinking water, wherever you go, the access that you have then to the bottled water kind of becomes important.

[00:14:06.480] - Elena Berg

Yes. So that's actually what I was going to ask next, is we all understand, we all accept that bottled water, there's no such thing as sustainable bottled water, right? Like everything produces waste that we have to deal with and we have to make those choices to reduce that waste insofar as we can. I mean, there's two pieces of this that I want to understand. One is what are you and your company doing to reduce waste? And then the second thing, which are probably going to connect to each other the challenges in your country related to access to water. So are the vast majority of people drinking bottled water?

[00:14:44.950] - Avanti Mehta

Okay, so I'll touch on what we do first, and then I think I'll move on to the country landscape. I've been saying this for a while, and I'm not an environmental scientist, nor am I somebody who is a scientist in any shape or form. I may not be an authority on this. I only have my experience to speak of. And what I have understood about sustainability is that it's local and that it's contextual. And so we serve water in plastic bottles. We use PET, which is 100% recyclable. We are not as advanced as Europe in terms of technology. So while it's very common in Europe for you all to have recycled PET bottles, so you're not using virgin PET resin. Have a bottle. Becoming a bottle. That technology has come to India, but because of the condition in which we find our waste, our PET, which is food grade, is still kind of just about becoming a reality. So you have like the Cokes and Pepsis, kind of like slowly, slowly embracing our pets. So we assume in the next five years, technology will be democratized to the point where small water farmers like me can also afford to have our PET bottles.

[00:15:53.370] - Avanti Mehta

And at least that way, you're not using virgin PET. Okay, let's believe you for a minute and be like, okay, plastic is bad. Instead of stating the problem, don't you think you should be looking at an alternative? Okay, we won't use plastic. What will we use? And please think about what is the end cycle of that product going to be? So one of the key reasons why we don't pack in tetra packs or aluminum cans, we do glass and pet, is because in India, our waste management ecosystem starts at a very small level. So you segregate your waste, then you have something called rack pickers who go about picking up the waste and they get money for this. Waste is incentivized so that it can be efficiently kind of handled. So when they pick up one PET bottle, which is 100% recyclable, I think what people don't understand is that all plastic, again, is not the same. When we look at the Indian waste management ecosystem, we are only able to recycle maybe 30% or 40% of our aluminum, but we're able to recycle 90% of our pet. So it made sense then to use a container or to use something that can be easily recycled.

[00:17:04.950] - Avanti Mehta

And while that is not upcycled into another bottle, it goes into road making, it goes into architecture, it goes into making fabrics, it goes into making yarn. So there's many, many ways, and it's called open loop recycling. There are many ways the PET waste is utilized, and it's a very set ecosystem. There's a law in place. It's called the end producers responsibility law, which is not only applicable to bottled water producers, it's applicable to anybody who produces any container, especially plastic containers. You are centrally tracked by the government as to how much you purchase raw material, how much are you recycling, and you kind of get a target every year. So it's not something that is just a social conscience of a company that they should be doing. It's actually mandated by law. Beyond a certain amount. You are liable as a producer to kind of handle your.

[00:17:55.940] - Elena Berg

Hmm, that's interesting. So I didn't realize open loop recycling was such a developed system. In the United States, we get told that our plastic gets recycled into other plastic products. Aside from it also being an imperfect system, there's some concern about how much of it actually happens. But also it's good to hear about the government mandate piece of this. Right? So you're ahead of the US in a lot of ways, holding companies accountable for waste that's produced. So it might be easy to point a finger about using plastic in a system that we're not very familiar with. But when we look a bit deeper at the context, we can see that these decisions aren't just lazy decisions, they have an impact. Yes, like all decisions. But there is an impact calculation going on.

[00:18:40.610] - Avanti Mehta

In terms of paper boxes or tetra packs. What people don't realize is that it's a layer of plastic, paper and aluminum. You can't recycle that. If that goes into the recycling process, it disrupts the recycling process. It's not compostable. You literally need to incarcerate these containers because there's no way to repurpose them.

[00:19:03.070] - Elena Berg

Yeah, I was talking to an old student about tetrapacks, which actually were made in Sweden. And over there they have this infrastructure and the machinery to take it apart. Take apart the tetra packs and recycle each layer individually. But without this expensive machinery, it's just not the magic bullet that people were hoping it would be.

[00:19:22.380] - Avanti Mehta

At the end of the day, I know there is no water brand that can be fully sustainable, but I am ethically sourcing my water, packaging it with zero water wasted into containers that are 100% recyclable and then delivered to your doorstep. So I think what people misunderstand is at least small water farmers like us, we are not exploiting nature. In fact, we go out of our way to protect nature because our livelihoods depend on this natural phenomena. If we were to exploit it, we wouldn't have that. So I think that's something that you talk about too, Dr. Elena, is this protectiveness that you feel towards your land, your spring. You make sure your source is not polluted, you make sure your water is protected. You make sure you're not bottling more than a certain amount, because you are not taking something for granted. And water is something we take for granted. But to us, that's not a choice. We wake up in the morning and the first thought is, how do I keep my source and water protected?

[00:20:24.870] - Elena Berg

Yeah, I think one of the things you brought up that I think a theme I'd like to keep revisiting during this podcast is context. One thing I find very challenging with my students is that they want a simple answer. And I understand that instinct. I have the same desire for simplicity. But sometimes you have to dig pretty deep to understand how to resolve issues, conflicts, questions in different contexts. Right. In other parts of the world, you might actually want to use glass in a certain context because it's readily available and there are facilities there that can create that glass, wash that glass, reuse that glass. And so in your company's case, you are evaluating the resources that you have available to you in India. Aren't you also doing water distribution in larger containers? That's not just the plastic glass.

[00:21:17.470] - Avanti Mehta

No. Locally, what we do is we have a 20 liter jar container, which we service a lot of households with. It's not possible to service that in other cities because we collect all those containers back. So it's a water subscription system that is obviously costing less than what your bottle of water would. It's a 20 liter container. People use it, we take back the container, wash it, reuse it, and that's about it.

[00:21:43.070] - Elena Berg

Okay, so this is similar in some ways to other small water farmers. I've talked to this service based on individual household subscriptions for water. I'm going to circle back a bit, because this debate about what packaging to use might be thrown out completely by some who would just say that we should be drinking from the tap and not at all from any of these packaged sources. But you mentioned earlier that sometimes we need bottled water, and many areas of the world do not have good municipal water systems. So in a crisis, our existing sources might not be safe or sufficient. As we have this conversation, I'm thinking about an article that came out pretty recently in the Associated Press. I'm guessing you read it too, and it was entitled Precious water: As more of the world thirsts, luxury water becoming fashionable among the elite. The journalists interviewed Michael Masha, and I think by the end of the article, they came to understand that the majority of us are not as disconnected as it may seem from the outside. But it's a tension that we should address. I want to also note, though, that that tension has changed over time.

[00:22:48.720] - Elena Berg

That the article may have some critiques in it, but also has a curiosity about the world of mineral water. Whereas even ten years ago that might not have been the case. But we have work to do. In my opinion, from what I've seen and my experience in this space, water sommeliers and water farmers are actually in a really good position to address issues of water, rather than just being called out for the waste that the mineral water industry produces. Whether it be calling attention to systems that don't work, offering a more sustainable choice, if not always perfect, providing education and even increasing access in some cases. So let's even take Aava for an example. I know that Aava is a unique premium water, and your clients range from hotels to airlines. But as you mentioned, during the pandemic, you became an essential service providing water to people who needed it. Obviously, the pandemic was a unique. Well, we hope, unique circumstance. But we never know when things like that are going to happen and you were ready to step in when you were needed. I'm also wondering to what extent Aava contributes to supplementing people's water needs in a more regular basis in an apocalyptic moment.

[00:24:04.010] - Avanti Mehta

When you ask me, do people have access to clean, safe drinking water in India? People do in some capacity, but it's a mix and match of having access. So in terms of who drinks bottled water in India, I would say twelve to 14% of India does drink bottled water on a daily basis. And when you look at our population, in terms of numbers that select a lot of people, that's about like 200 million, 300 million people. But it's not majority of the nation that is drinking bottled water. A, they may not have the means to, it's expensive for them, B, they have like a purification system at home which kind of completely looks after every concern that they might have. And C, I mean, there isn't really that much awareness about water and wellness and all of that in India. Mineral water is just water that's fit enough to drink, water that you can pick up, drink, and you will not fall sick.

[00:25:00.390] - Elena Berg

So a lot of people who use mineral water or bottled water are using it for basic hydration. But as you mentioned, this water isn't available to everyone, perhaps for reasons of cost. In that case, are these filtration systems pretty common then?

[00:25:15.490] - Avanti Mehta

To give you a very basic example, my family was drinking water that was clearly very good, but there was still a filter on there because you just didn't trust the water that came from the ground. You had this deep rooted mistrust with water. Also, to kind of give you context, we're one nation of 29 different states, and every state has its own government. It makes its own policy. Obviously, there's a larger drinking water policy in place, but it's really, when you look at drinking water in India, you kind of have to really go like micro, micro, micro, down to different levels. So, for example, in Kerala, there was a drive that was undertaken to install RO purification plants in villages so that they become self sufficient in terms of their water supply, because, I mean, the groundwater was a bit polluted, but through the RO purification system, they were getting access to pure, safe, clean drinking water. So I think, as a water sommelier, we always focus on the epicurean experience in India. We don't look at water from an epicurean perspective. We look at it from a hydration perspective.

[00:26:20.990] - Elena Berg

I think trust is a big thing when we're talking about bottled water. And I think a good balance to strike for water sommeliers and for water farmers is one to spread the word about the beauty of water, the diversity of sources and flavors, the opportunities and benefits it presents in certain settings. Two, to emphasize that where the tap is fine, the tap really is fine. More than that, it's a beauty and it's this amazing resource. Three, and where we can to provide more sustainable alternatives to large corporations in supplying safe and clean water to people and places that have a harder time reaching it. And I think that's what I see happening a lot, and certainly what I see happening with Aava. So that's really encouraging.

[00:27:05.750] - Avanti Mehta

So when we bottle water, we don't just bottle water, we bottle trust and wellness. And we've been doing that as a company for the last 18 years. So we are hopefully going to take that further and make people more aware about the difference between natural winter water. And hopefully they can enjoy Aava.

[00:27:22.980] - Elena Berg

Well, I thank you for your work and for your trust in a bottle and for giving us your time today. I look forward to maybe having Aava on an airplane one day. There are 5,176 miles between the Peak district and Kerala. In the last two episodes, we've gotten to see that there are a lot of differences between the two water farms that we've visited so far, but there are a lot of similarities, too. Both Crag and Aava are independent companies operating on a relatively small scale that sort of stumbled across this amazing water source. And now both are dedicated to bringing a precious natural resource to people in their communities. Both have a commitment to education. Both have a commitment to the environment. I think the fact that execution of their commitment has been adapted to their particular regions represents the idea that one size doesn't fit all in sustainability, which is kind of empowering. It's sort of that think global - act local adage. And it means that we can all look at our own surroundings and think about how we can get involved. And just a little side note here, I think we need to be careful about greenwashing when we talk about sustainability.

[00:28:35.430] - Elena Berg

My message is not that drinking bottled water is somehow a green choice, or that just by reducing impact, these companies are no longer part of the corporate world. Of course, that's not the case. Everything we do has an impact, certainly enjoying bottled water, and we need to own up to that and pay attention to our choices. Thank you for listening to the fourth episode of Something in the Water. Please join us back here, wherever you're listening. For our next episode, where we're going to continue our case study journey, we'll talk to Candice Jansen, a water sommelier from South Africa, where we'll talk about government regulations of water inequality of access, water education in a digital era and how fine water is more and more making its way into restaurant spaces. Follow or subscribe so you don't miss it. I'm your host, Elena Berg. This podcast was produced and written by myself and Clark Marchese. The episode's guest was Avanti Mehta, and we've put some information about her in our show notes. This is a Pine Forest Media production and full transcripts can be found at pineforestpods.com. The music you're listening to was produced by Joseph Salvat, my friend and future guest on the show. Cover art was made by Sarah Glavin and the show was edited by Clark Marchese. Finally, thank you to the American University of Paris for making this podcast possible. If you feel called, writing a review and giving us a five star rating is the best thing you can do to help us out so we can make more sciency podcasts in the bye for now.