Bursting the Water Bubble: The Hidden Truth of Bottled Water

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome back to Everyone Talks to Liz. It's summer.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Oh, that's really observant of you, Liz. Oh, my God. Drink water. You have to hydrate, seriously. And I don't do that enough. I'm not practicing what I preach, but here's how I've been able to improve drinking water. Every day, I drink sparkling. Are you guys sparkling or still, people? I'm totally sparkling. I do not want to drink still. It bores me to tears. So I started drinking sparkling water. And at, uh, first I was just like, whatever was there, right? In a can or in a plastic bottle. And then I was, oh, I really like La Croix. And then I read some stuff about them, and I was like, no, I'm moving on. And then Spindrift came along. Spindrift has real juice in it, and I loved that. And I've. And just downing them every single night and day. But this is a very crowded field. Incredibly crowded. And we always talk about how to come up with an idea of a business to launch. So the last thing I would probably do is enter a crowded field. However, my guests today did just that. So what if the cleanest thing you put into your body isn't actually that clean? I mean, it's a question most of us never stop to ask. We scrutinize all kinds of labels. Oh, we're gonna drink pure water, et cetera. But water is the one thing we consume more than anything else, and we tend to trust whatever is on the label. That trust is exactly what Clara Sig began questioning as she prepared to become a mom. The deeper she looked into the water she was drinking, the more she discovered a, ah, kind of shockingly lack of transparency around what was actually in the water. People choose to drink every day at the same time. David Kimmel, who's a veteran entreprene in the beverage world, he's the dude behind Spindrift, saw an opportunity to rethink an industry that had gone largely unchanged for decades, except for a few tweaks here and there. Together, they launched Lunan Water with a, uh, pretty lofty goal. Not just to sell water, but to challenge the standards of an entire gigantic category in a world increasingly concerned about contaminants. Microplastics. We've talked about that on this, uh, podcast. And what's really in our food and water. Their mission is striking a huge chord with health conscious consumers and also raising bigger questions about an industry many of us take for granted. So how did a mom's query and quest for Answers become a company challenging an entire industry and finding itself on the shelves of some of the most important retailers around. Joining me now are the co founders of Loon and Water, Clara. David. Welcome to everyone talks to Liz. We're so excited to hear about the path that you had to take to create something that was clearly so passionate to you all. And Clara, I mean let's begin with you because your path to Lunan started during a really personal time. Talk about that.

Speaker D: Yeah. So I started thinking really seriously about everything I was putting in and on my body, um, when I was trying to get pregnant. So that path was quite a bit longer and a little bit more turbulent than we expected. I ended up going through IVF and to support that really looked to lifestyle changes that I could make. Um, and in that process I learned quite a bit about plastics and endocrine disruptors and how bad they are for you generally, but really studied around fertility. Um, and in a period of time that felt like I didn't have all that much agency and um, frankly a little bit out of control and certainly a lot of emotional whiplash, I really stuck to things that felt more in my control and in doing that and focusing there, I really tried to make changes in our household that were more or less set it and forget it and minimized our exposure to day to day plastics and endocrine disruptors. So, um, you know, in the kitchen we swapped out plastic for glass food storage containers. We stopped using nonstick pans. We eat mostly organic, um, and beauty and personal care. You probably know and use the brands that have taught us about parabens and phthalates and synthetic fragrance and given us kind of the easy button solution on that dimension. Um, and same goes for home cleaning. Like we use a lot of water and vinegar at home and branch basics and it works really well. Um, and then I got to the water set and we were renting at the time and couldn't put an under counter filtration system in. And I looked for a bottled water that I could trust and frankly just found a lot of plastic and plastic lined aluminum in the set. And then when we moved to the glass set, very little transparency on what was actually in the water. And um, I became obsessed with that because your body's 60% water and um, through pregnancy your fluid levels go up by 50%. I swear, the level of bloating I had by the end of pregnancy, I was like 99% pregnant.

Speaker B: So the spoiler alert is you did get pregnant.

Speaker D: I did. I now have a two year Old. Um, uh, which is a little bit nutty, because when David and I started working on this, she was a newborn. And then, um, when we left our jobs, she was six months old. And so, as we keep telling the story, I keep rechecking how old she is, but, yeah, she's a little over two. She turned two in March.

Speaker B: Well, when you use the term endocrine disruptor, I'm not gonna assume that everybody knows what that means, but I do know this. You go to a restaurant, and they say, would you like bottle or tap? And my mother was the queen of from the tap, please. And then she'd say under her breath, they overcharge you for the bottled water. Um, tell me what endocrine are specifically. I know, but I want our listeners to know. And it's not just for women. I mean, microplastics that come from the bottle. This is a whole issue that people are now suddenly becoming much more aware of.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think for a long time, we knew that plastics were bad for our environment, and we are now learning a lot about them being bad for our health, too. I will make it very clear. I am not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. Um, but broadly speaking, endocrine disruptors impact the way that hormones, um, work in your body. And hormones are basically the signaling system, um, for how your body functions. And so, um, that is really, really impactful when it comes to fertility, for sure.

Speaker C: Um,

Speaker D: I read a book back in 2021 when I was, um, going through this process called Countdown by Shauna Swan, and it's now much better known because she recently came out with a documentary on Netflix called the Plastic Detox. Um, and showing that, you know, you can make these lifestyle changes. And, um, I think that the important thing is sometimes this can feel really overwhelming because plastic is everywhere, and it's impossible to fully avoid. But doing set it and forget it swaps is really helpful and impactful, and that's sort of the framework that I took to this. And what led me to the idea behind, uh, Luna, which we can talk a little bit about.

Speaker B: Yeah, we will, but. But we got it. We got to get to sort of the genesis of it. And you don't just start a water company. David, uh, you had spent nearly two decades inside the beverage supply chains, and for anybody who knows Spindrift, that's David. I have my fridge stocked with spindrift now. It used to be I would just grab any m. I would just grab any sparkling water. Then, of course, you know, my whole family's from California. I go out there and there was only Spindrift. I said, oh, I drink Lacroix. You gotta do Spindrift. And then, of course, then that changed to something else. And, you know, they still have that, but then they've added other ones. There are, and I did a, uh, look into this. Thousands of distinct bottled water brands worldwide. In the US alone, there are something like 2,800 registered water companies and brands that I'm sure was a tough industry for you to break into. But what brought you and Clara together? And after having already launched a successful sparkling water company, why try another?

Speaker E: Yeah, so, I mean, a couple. Yeah, thank you. I mean, it's a couple. Uh, yes, fascinating, uh, topic, honestly. So what, uh, brought Claire together? Actually, we've known each other for a number of years. Uh, Clara, uh, prior to us starting Lunan, was on the investing side. Um, and, you know, she can touch more on that, but doing early stage investments in businesses like DraftKings and Sweet Greens, et cetera. And, uh, a couple times while at Spindrift, um, some of her portfolio companies had reached out to me to see if it was the right time for me to move on and see if there would be a fit there for me to come help run one of those businesses. And there wasn't. But Claire and I really struck up a kindred, ah, friendship there, thought partners with each other, um, really got to know each other and just stayed connected, um, in discussing this. And I had seen really firsthand, uh, what goes on inside facilities in the ways they, you know, they, they treat water. Um, you know, either adding, you know, chlorine or disinfectant byproducts to water or some of the ways in which it's dealt with, plus, you know, all of the, you know, plastic lined aluminum. Um, and really, you know, that's what an aluminum can is. It's a, it's a plastic bag with a coating of aluminum around it. And so.

Speaker B: Wait, what? Really?

Speaker E: Yes, yes, yes. You can go on, like, YouTube and look up videos of people disintegrating cans, and what's left is this thin plastic lining.

Speaker D: Um, yeah, I mean, I think it's an important. You don't recognize that when you make the shift to aluminum, which is certainly better for the environment. But, um, from a health perspective, it has to be lined with plastic because aluminum is corrosive. Right. So if it was just liquid and aluminum wouldn't last very long and you'd have a lot of aluminum sitting in your beverage.

Speaker E: Yes. Um, and so yeah, So I was, you know, I had. And I think, you know, what's fascinating, you know, for me on a personal level, is there are a lot of parallels between when we created a, you know, a better version of sparkling water at Spindrift, adding real fruit, no natural flavors, taking a stance. And what the bottled water category has. Has been recently, which is, frankly, a race to the bottom. Very private label dominated. How thin of a bottle can we make it? How cheaply can we make it? How much margin and cost of goods can we drive? Um, but no real brand emerging with innovation and creating a better for you product, and real brand loyalty. And so when Clara originally had this idea and her and I were having lunch together and talking it through, it just. It immediately hit me kind of the, what we call kind of the dusty old green category of glass bottled water, and really the kind of manufacturers driving the business one way, but the consumer looking for something fundamentally different.

Speaker B: So Lunan, how did it come to life? First of all, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, it is a tall, very substantive, thick glass bottle with the aluminum top.

Speaker D: It is, yeah.

Speaker B: And talk to me about how you kind of crystallized in your mind, this is where we start. We need to do glass bottle water.

Speaker D: Yeah. So, um, the tipping point for me was really, um, when I went back to work and David mentioned I had been on the investing side for about 15 years. Um, I went back to work, I transitioned my daughter from breastfeeding to bottle feeding. I was super conscientious about the formula that I chose. I put it in a glass bottle, and then the main ingredient that you mix into it is water. And that, for me, was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. Um, but the investing history is a little important because, um, the one big lesson I took across those years is that the best founders embrace knowing what they don't know and then build a team around them to support those things. Um, and so for me, I knew very well that I didn't know how to make water. And David was the first person I looked to call. And when it clicked for him, I think between, um, the obsessiveness I had from the consumer perspective and the obsessiveness he had from excellent quality and production practices, it felt like shame on us if we didn't take a swing at this. And I think what built confidence for both of us was I, um, had a new baby and a very stable career. And every time I talked to a friend about the idea of Lunan, of Leaving my job to start a bottled water company, invariably, most people thought it was insane. And I had some postpartum neuroses. Um, but without fail, every person a week or two weeks later would end up texting me, hey, what's the under counter filtration system? I should be buying a picture of a glass bottle of water. Is this glass bottle water? Okay, what do you think of this can? And you realize that, you know, so many people have been tweaking their supplement stacks and thinking about hydration packs and greens powders and protein mixes and these little optimizations. And when you really step back, water is the foundation of it all.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker D: Um, and once you start thinking about water as that, it's something that's really hard to let go of.

Speaker B: So, David, what was the first step that you and Clara took when it came to what came first, the chicken or the egg? The bottle or the water?

Speaker D: So definitely the water.

Speaker E: Definitely the water.

Speaker B: And it's spring sourced. It's spring sourced.

Speaker E: It is. And so our product and our, and the evolution of it has evolved over time. And so originally, uh, the impetus was really around this idea of a very high quality spring water in glass bottle. With obsessive testing, Claire and I started a trek across the country. Uh, we spent about six months visiting springs, meeting, uh, with spring owners, tasting water, looking at their title 21, which is a water quality report that they publish annually. And it was incredibly eye opening for us. Right. What we found was just like most other things in nature, water quality changes. Uh, one spring might have an incredible report one year and some differences the following year based off how much rain they got or how much drought they got. Um, and we really wanted to have not just a better product, but really something fundamentally better and different. And what we found was these springs often had footnotes and they might be small, but arsenic, radium, nitrates. And so we really looked to the World Health Organization, who talks about starting with the highest quality starting point of water and pairing it with high quality filtration. And that's how we really evolved to this idea of starting with spring sourced water, which is the highest quality source of water, stainless, uh, steel, tankering it to a production facility, running it through all stainless steel piping and physical membrane filtration so that the water itself never has any plastic contact anywhere in the supply chain. Um, and then doing our filtration process, doing our testing, but, you know, effectively doing this spring sourced purified water, which is a fundamentally different product.

Speaker B: This is, everyone talks to Liz and we will be right Back.

Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Starbucks.

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Speaker B: And Clara, when you were looking at the thousands of options in the water world, I mean, you've got the glass water bottle brands like Aquapana, um, Mountain Valley, Saratoga, San Pellegrino, Perrier, and they're the plastic water ones, you know, Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Fiji. Then you've got the aluminum disposable water brands. Liquid Death, Open Water, Proud Source, Pure Life, the list goes on. What shocked you the most as you were looking at the supply chain that you didn't know before that was the worst contributor to ruining the whole water process?

Speaker D: I think an important thing for us to focus, um, on is that supply chain of water because it's fundamentally different than a lot of other CPG categories. If you think about yogurt, for example, short shelf life, cold chain, um, then you look at the water category. If you're a plastic bottle of water, um, if you're bottled correctly, according to the fda, you really don't have an expiration date. What that means is you're a shelf stable product. Typically sitting on hot trucks and warehouses that are not temperature controlled, oftentimes on pallet, during transit, baking under the sunlight and then on shelf for a very long time can be, um, what degrades plastic is its heat exposure, light exposure and time. Um, and so those three things combine with the supply chain of water, which again is just different than other categories in consumer that have a much shorter shelf life and are often more, um, cold chain or at least temperature controlled than water is. And that creates a bad environment for leaching. Um, and then when you look to the glass set, we're the first spring source purified water. But to my knowledge, we're also the first purified water, full stop sitting in glass. David mentioned this. There are much better sources than others in the world. But we live in a globally connected water system and every source has some footnote that World Health Organization guidance that tells us to combine the highest quality source with the highest quality filtration practices really helps ensure that we have an unmatched purity and consistent consistency in our product. And then we rebalance it after we do the filtration with the highest quality minerals you can find. So think Celtic sea salt, not refined table salt, magnesium Potassium and calcium. And that brings the water back to the original mineralization of our spring source, but without those footnotes.

Speaker B: And you test every batch for something like 300 contaminants. You post the results via QR code on the bottle. You are radically transparent. And is that helping your sales or freaking people out? I don't know already. I'm like, I'm not drinking tap water ever again.

Speaker D: It's an important question. So we are part of the solution. We're not the full solution. I draw a lot of inspiration from the way that my mom raised us. I was born in the 80s, grew up in the 80s and 90s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which isn't really necessarily like, the bastion of health and wellness, especially at that time. And my mom, um, was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was young and given a pretty bad prognosis. And she paired her treatment with lifestyle changes. And at the time, that was really avoiding pesticides, avoiding added hormones to food, um, and dairy, and changing the way that we cleaned her house. Right. It's not so dissimilar from what we're doing. Right. She, um, called every dairy farm in the Pittsburgh area, and we only shopped from the one that guaranteed they didn't use bovine growth hormone. Um, she went into our school lunchroom, and she asked them to stop using industrial cleaner on the tables where kids eat their lunches without, um, plates. And instead, they switched to vinegar and water. And, oh, by the way, they saved money doing so.

Speaker B: Wow, your mom was badass.

Speaker D: She's amazing. Yeah, my mom's really, really amazing. She's 81. She's an incredible shape and health today. Um, and she was ahead of her time in many, many ways. But, you know, at the time, a lot of the stuff that she did was considered pretty fringe. Um, and now today, we think of it as common sense, because USDA organic certification happened in 2002, and there's been a tremendous amount of progress made, um, alongside that in the, in our food system in the US that makes it easier to make informed decisions around whether or not your food has pesticides in it, et cetera. Um, and I think we're at a similar tipping point when it comes to plastics and forever chemicals and stuff like that. We know that, um, our government is working on solutions, but it's a really hard and challenging problem.

Speaker B: What? No, Let me tell you something. Every other day, I am hearing the Trump administration relaxing regulations on drinking water and chemicals in drinking water. Yes, that's a problem. And this is not political. This is just A fact?

Speaker D: Yeah, I think, um, you know, it was announced that 144 million are as being devoted to researching microplastics and water. And I think from a consumer perspective, for me, um, that shows us that this is a real problem. But it also shows us it's going to be a really long path before there's fundamental change. Um, from a regulatory perspective, um, you know, like, I don't like to make us a political, um, thing. I think our systems in the US are. Some of our infrastructure is older. We have over 50,000 different community water systems in the U.S. um, 90% of which serve 5,000 people or less. And so when you think about what that means, it means a lot of them are underfunded and under resourced, and they also weren't built to deal with microplastics and forever chemicals.

Speaker B: Well, we remember the drama of Flint, Michigan and the water system there. And kids were dying. Uh, it's horrible. And so this focus that you initially had was just really, really, it was driven by passion. David, talk about the. You're the bottling guy. I've been in bottling plants. I've been in Milwaukee at the beer plants where they're bottling everything. Um, talk about the first time that you ran Lunin through the system. I mean, was it one of these, you know, I Love Lucy situations where everything was squirting all over the place? I mean, was it hard at first? Were there mistakes?

Speaker E: Yeah, sure. I mean, I. Clara knows this, like, as we evolved our process and you know, I do have, uh, a lot of colleagues and friends in the industry now, having been in it for so long. You know, um, it's a, it's a huge industry in some ways and a tiny industry and others. Right. And so, um, you know, as we were building this idea and I started to have conversations about it, the more people that told me I was insane, the more I knew we were onto something. Um, and it's always really interesting in the beginning, right? Like if you just. Whether it's a beverage or it's anything, if you think about these two principles of, you know, I have an idea that I want to do that is unique and different from the way people are doing things. And I want to try to make as little of it as possible. Um, you know, you're. You're only going to find so many partners who say, oh, great, I'm with you on that. Sign me up for that. And, you know, as you bid in those facilities, like their production environments, their goal is to put out, you know, as much as they can on a daily basis. And so, you know, the hard part for us, the most challenging part into your kind of I Love Lucy spraying stuff was these purification filtration systems have only ever been built for municipal tap water filtration. Um, and so we had to design an entire stainless steel, you know, a piping system through their facility, a special unloading station to bring in the water and, and, you know, build in all of this kind of new automation and new ways to run that that they'd never seen before. And so when they're, you know, when they're kind of running a plant and they're in a hum every day, and then you come in to do something different, it's, you know, it's got its challenges. Um, and then how you, you know, how you kind of box it and package it safely. There's just, there's always, you know, learnings. But, uh, you know, fortunately we weren't like spraying water everywhere. But there were certainly large, you know, losses of water through the filtration process as we learned to dial in our special membranes and things like that to really maximize our process.

Speaker B: So you start bottling this stuff, how did you get attention for it? Because as I said, you're telling me I'm putting out another bottled water company. It's like, oy, why there are a million here. But how did you get shelf space? That is always the challenge. Because nobody wants to give up an inch of the shelf space they have fought hard to get. And you're up against. Let's be very clear to my listeners. You see Poland Spring, that's owned by Nestle, huge conglomerate. You see Aquafina, Pepsi runs that. You see Dasani. And Smart Water, that's Coca Cola. I mean, this industry is heavily dominated by a few gigantor corporations. So how did you kind of scratch your way through to get some shelf space?

Speaker D: Yeah, in a weird way, um, we've used that as a superpower, um, in the sense that we bring a really human point of view to the category. Um, we launched initially in the Bay Area. I live in Oakland. Um, some local here, and our whole team was out here. We visited retailers, we spent a ton of time in grocery stores. We do demos. Um, we know our store managers. We try and support at a very local level in a real human connection way. And because our competition are giant conglomerates, they're not showing up in that same way. And so we've been able to develop really genuine relationships, tell our story on a one to one basis with customers as we stand behind demo tables and stuff like that. And it's gritty work, but it's also awesome to see folks learning more and really engaging with the product and then becoming true loyalists to the way that we do things. The taste of our water, the feel of the bottle in hand, a wider spout that's nice to drink from. All these little details that we get feedback on on a regular basis because we're out in market, um, and we've used that momentum to continue to do it market after market. So we just launched nationally with Sprouts, um, two weeks ago and David and I were in Phoenix.

Speaker B: It's great.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's like a huge milestone for us and obviously a massive undertaking, but we tried to apply the same lens. So, you know, David and I were out in Phoenix two weeks ago and we hit about 50 stores in a two day period and our entire team will be together in Southern California. There are 95 sprouts. We're going to hit them all. Um, and I think that part of building the company is, again, it's really hard work and it's a really challenging category. But, um, that's a bright spot.

Speaker E: You know, we knew, um, early, you know, outside of shelf Space, that there was a large, you know, online community of influencers, podcasters, doctors, you know, talking about this problem without really a solution to recommend. Right. They were just talking about this problem and it was growing more so by the day around microplastics and water and all these disinfectant byproducts and things like that. And so, you know, like, uh, you know, a huge point of emphasis for us. Early was trying to connect with those people who are sharing the same passion and like mindedness and, and bringing our product to them for them to try and give us feedback and give us thoughts on it. Um, and we use that as a real opportunity in a way to help, you know, create, you know, leverage and awareness for the brand as well.

Speaker B: And the name Lunan. So the loon, I'm Canadian, so I know the loony, which is the bird that's on the, which is on the currency there. Um, yeah, loons are wild water birds. But, but what do you want people to know about why you picked that name?

Speaker D: Yeah, there's a, there's a lot to unpack there. Um, I grew up spending a lot of time in northern Vermont and I still spend a lot of time in northern Vermont. And, um, we have a house on a dirt road up there on a small lake. And that lake is full of Loons. So I've been obsessed with them pretty much my entire life. Um, crazy as a loon is based on the loon. I think, you know, we, David and I had to really embrace our own craziness to start this thing for all the reasons you mentioned before. But um, the really cool thing about loons is they are monogamous in their migratory patterns every year. So year after year they go back to the same lake unless the water quality declines and then they stop showing up. So um, researchers actually use them as bioindicators and for water purity. And that's really the way that we think about outsourcing. We test at our source. Um, if it meets our quality standards, we use it. If it doesn't, we move on from it. Um, accepting that in a, again a globally connected water system, sources change season to season, year to year with surrounding land use and different weather patterns and um, this notion that uh, a, ah, random geography and a picture of a waterfall as a proxy for purity is just not the case anymore.

Speaker B: Oh, this is incredible. I'm learning a lot. When you look back at everybody who said, what are you doing doing dude, going into this business? What do you say to them now? And this was not an easy route. I mean making glass, bottled, purified sparkling water. You need capital. It's not cheap.

Speaker E: We do, yeah. I would, I would say that that is probably the mantra of my life though. Like I joke, I think my LinkedIn bio says like building simple ideas that are, you know, operationally, uh, difficult. Um, way back early in my career I worked for a gluten free chip company that we grew and sold to General Mills. And I had a real true crossroads moment in my life. Uh, my wife and I were up till 2:00 in the morning because door number one was uh, picking up our family, moving to Minnesota, working for a very stable company like General Mills and having a pension and things like that. And door number two was going to work, uh, with Bill Kremen, the founder of Spindrift, in the basement of his house and start this idea, uh, of a better for you beverage. Um, and uh, of the hundred people we talked to, 99 of them said you should absolutely. Parents and grandparents. And of course you moved to Minnesota and you worked for General Mills. And it was about 2 o' clock in the morning and my wife looked at me and she was like, you're going to pick us up, you're going to move us to Minnesota and you're going to be miserable working for a company of that Size. And you should absolutely go work in the basement of this guy's house with him and see what you guys can build.

Speaker B: Well, therein lies the message that I want my listeners to really absorb, and that is, if you're really passionate about something, know thyself and go for it. And there's no, in my opinion, such thing as failure. You guys tell me if you agree. As long as you're in the process and you're moving and there's momentum towards something, even if you stumble and faceplant, you still gain something from it, right?

Speaker E: It's a learning. That's how you gotta treat it, right? It's either a win or it's a learning.

Speaker B: So if somebody conducted a blind taste test right now of Lunan sparkling water and something else, what would you hope they notice about Lunan first? Clara?

Speaker D: Okay, well, if it's sparkling water and not our still, I can really go deep on this one.

Speaker E: This was a very, very, very big point for Clara early on, was us really nailing carbonation.

Speaker B: This is everyone talks to Liz, and we will be right back.

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Speaker B: I'm all about sparkling water. That is all I do.

Speaker D: I'm obsessed with sparkling water, so we share that in common. Um, I like high carbonation, but I don't like a big bubble. Um, I don't want a distended belly because I drank too much water too quickly. Um, and so we really focused on making sure our carbonation levels were high. But then we use, um, what's called a bubble breaker, which is basically physical agitation to make the bubbles really refined. So that's really important when you think about, um, even being in restaurant. You mentioned we partner with, um, a number of restaurants because I think, you know, our attention to quality and, um, our carbonation levels and all those little things, um, are really reflective of the way that, um, chefs and restaurants think about their back of house ingredients and how thoughtful they are with building their menu. Um, and so we've, we found real alignment there. Um, but back to the sparkling. It really nicely cleanses your palate because it, that they, those are those refined bubbles, but it still has that, like, punch and spiciness that you want from a good sparkling water. Um, so much so that in our earlier production runs, like our first production run, I was like, dogmatic that it was going to be this crazy high, uh, carbonation levels. And then, um, the. I was there on the, on the line with David and the guy, um, who was, you know, dialing our, our fill levels turned to us and was like, do you want, do you want to err on the side of overfilling or under filling? And David's like, underfilling. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, sorry, I'm gonna override this. Like, we are generous people. We are overfilling these bottles if it is one or the other. And the result was our first production run. Like, every sales meeting we went to, I would take the bottle and like, open it really slowly because otherwise somebody would rip it open and explode it all over them. They're covered in water. Um, so, you know, there have been some learnings, and I think we've really dialed it to be an excellent carbonation level that still hits but also doesn't explode on you.

Speaker B: You guys sound like, um, wine experts. It's a fruity bouquet with undertones of raspberry and dark chocolate.

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker B: But I just, I just took a sip. After hearing from you, I just took a sip and I would have never. Now I see the distinction between very small bubbles versus the large bubbles. Like, you'll almost choke on some of the bigger bubble sparkling water.

Speaker E: Yeah, I would just. And you notice, I don't know, at least for me personally, uh, I'm sensitive to high carbonation. So, um, products that are very highly carbonated, you can almost get that if the bubbles are too big, you get that almost like metallic aftertaste from, from the carbon dioxide. And so we, you know, we wanted to make sure first and foremost that the Taste of the water came through and then was like effervescent from the bubbles, rather than it, you know, it overpowering the water.

Speaker D: Yeah. But you have to try our still because this, uh, David knows this. I basically only drank sparkling water forever, and now I've converted to. I mostly drink Luna still. The water just tastes really good and it's so delightful and it's in. In its purest form. I'm just really proud of it. It's like a crisp, clean sip. And from the bottle is awesome. Because I mentioned this quickly before, but we designed. We were really thoughtful about the bottle design because that also footed with some of the little obsessive consumer things that I really was annoyed by in the category. Um, like most glass bottled waters don't fit in your car cup holder. They're wider on the bottom. And so when you open the car door, if it's sitting on your car door, it, like falls out, it breaks, or it's sloshing around on your passenger seat and it's just annoying. And then, um, most of the spouts are really thin, so you're, like, pursing your lips. It doesn't feel like you're drinking from a glass. And we designed it a wider spout so that you do have a nice drinking experience from bottle. And by the way, because it fits in your card cup holder, it also fits nicely in your hand.

Speaker B: And I want to let people know. So there are also these very sort of unobvious but graceful ridges in the bottom so that you can grip it in your hand.

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker B: That is so cool. What do you call those?

Speaker D: Well, they used to. You have the new bottles, so, uh, you know, we are constantly iterating and tweaking and trying to improve, um, our original bottlenecks, I called them worms because that's what they ended up looking like. And we were really frustrated that they were not more ripply. Um, and the new bottle, um, it's a lot more nuanced and it looks like water ripples. Um, and so we finally achieved that, which I'm really proud of.

Speaker B: David, let's just finish up here by saying one thing that I think is important always to stress. It's not easy to start a company and follow a dream. And the dream, obviously, was driven by Clara's thought, but you were right there alongside with her. What would you say to people who are listening, who have an idea, but think, oh, this is going to be too hard to pull off, and it's a very overcrowded market in whatever they want to Do?

Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question and something I think a lot about. And I try to talk to first time founders or entrepreneurs or help in, you know, any way I ever can to try to ease that burden or path for them a little bit. Like, you just have to put one foot in front of the other. Um, you know, we talk about this. You know, Claire and I were talking about this last night. Like, every business is unique. Every business is different. It doesn't, you know, in some ways it doesn't matter. Sure, it can be helpful if you've done it before, you have some experience, but they all have their own challenges and their own uniqueness to them that you're still constantly learning and evolving. And, you know, I like to joke that, you know, maybe I can help us make a million mistakes a day instead of 2 million. Um, but, you know, like, we're, we're always learning. And yes, these spaces are crowded. Um, but, you know, innovation is constant. It is, you know, change is always happening and new things are evolving and learning and, you know, if you just put your truly heart and soul into it and, you know, build it step by step. And, you know, I think the biggest thing is just you, you have to have this unwavering determination because there are going to be challenges you face every day. And there's a lot, and there's a lot of where do I put my time and how do I make decisions? And you just, you just keep moving forward and you do the best you can with it and, you know, you seek advice and counsel where you can. Um, but I think it's really that unwavering determination that helps move it forward.

Speaker B: Well, I'd like to believe that if my mom were alive, she would say, all right, I'll try it, and then roll her eyes, try it, and then say, you know what?

Speaker E: That's all we could ask for.

Speaker B: It's really good. The queen of from the tap, only I'm not paying extra. Both of you, congratulations on reaching for a dream and grabbing it. And Lunan, what a great concept and what a great motivation right behind it. Thank you very much for telling the story.

Speaker D: Thanks for the pleasure.

Speaker E: Thank you for having us.

Speaker B: Okay, and everyone who's listening, please do not do what I did, which is pour this gorgeous, unbelievably good, purified water into a plastic cup. I'm never gonna do that again. But I hope you learned something here, and not just about how water is manufactured, made, and purified or not, but also how it's bottled. What are you putting in your body. And thankfully, there are entrepreneurs out there like Clara and Dave, who want to do better for the world and for you. But also look what they went through to do it. So get that dream out there. I'm so appreciative that you tuned in for this one and all of them. So thank you so much. And listen, it's a Friday that we're taping this. I just wanna say happy weekend, crazy, crazy weeks, each and every time. But I want you to view Everyone Talks to Liz as sort of a, uh, way station each part of your week where you stop, you listen and you learn something and you absorb it and it makes you a better person or at least more knowledgeable. I'm really grateful that you do. I'll see you Monday through Friday, 3pm Eastern, on the Claim and Countdown. Want to listen ad free? You can do it with a Fox News Podcasts plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and then Amazon prime members. You can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon music app.

Speaker A: Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at foxnewswineshop.com with code FNRADIO20. 20% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31, 2026. Must be 21 or older to order. Please drink responsibly.