KING OF PRUSSIA, PA.—The marriage of Vero Water and Quench is good news for hoteliers and good news for the environment. Quench, a Culligan company, announced the acquisition of Vero Water earlier this month. Vero Water and Quench both offer filtered water systems that eliminate single-use plastic bottle waste, significantly reducing carbon emissions and minimizing overall environmental impact.
Quench is a leader in providing point-of-use water dispensers, ice machines, sparkling water machines, and coffee machines that offer users many consumption choices, including quenchWATER+ alkaline water, RO water, chewable ice, sparkling water, flavored water, and coffee. Vero Water offers on-site purification of still and sparkling water served in eco-friendly luxury reusable Vero Water branded bottles that provide businesses with a steady revenue stream. According to Michael Servetnick, now VP Sales – HORECA for Quench and one of Vero Water’s co-founders, Quench has primarily focused on commercial office and facilities markets with filtered still water coolers.
“Now we have the ability to scale our business by offering a range of solutions and services to our customers,” Servetnick says. “Now we have the ability to keep growing and faster and can provide more units and more service.”
As often happens in acquisition cases, one company’s success in a particular market caught the attention of a bigger player. In Vero Water’s case it was its popularity and ability to build a brand in the lodging industry that caught Quench’s attention. For Vero Water it was an ideal opportunity. “We were always looking to build our brand,” Servetnick says.
Win-Win for Both Brands
Quench now will gain a larger presence in the hotel, restaurant and catering space and will put more financial muscle behind the Vero Water brand—a win-win for both brands that rely on water-as-a-service business models. In the case of Vero Water, it installs a system, maintains it, and provides the bottles and marketing support to help businesses turn glass bottled water into a revenue stream. A restaurant, for example, can charge a per-person or per-table charge for a supply of premium filtered water. Vero Water will benefit from Quench’s wholly-owned national service network.
Servetnick says there really is no core customer for a Vero Water system. “We can cater to a small, five-seat eatery to a large, high-end restaurant in the heart of New York City,” he says, adding that Vero Water can be offered not only in restaurants but in guestrooms, meeting spaces, and other areas of a hotel as well. In each case the environmental upside of using Vero Water is part of the messaging.
Last year Vero Water announced the introduction of VERO+4 featuring Touchless Technology to meet the heightened sanitation and safety requirements for HORECA establishments because of COVID-19. The VERO+4 with Touchless Technology includes all the features of the original Vero+4, such as the proprietary VERO+ Five-Stage filtration process that consistently delivers Vero’s signature taste, but with the added benefit of touchless filling.
Glenn Hasek can be reached at greenlodgingnews@gmail.com.
