Although its name hints at Costa Smeralda, Acqua Smeraldina – twice awarded the prestigious Best Mineral Water in the World award by Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting – is from Gallura, precisely Tempio Pausania. It springs out at a depth of three hundred metres amidst limestone rock and damp earth in the Monti di Deu, the mountains of God, once considered sacred.
A success story right from the start
Acqua Smeraldina’s success story began when the Sardinian entrepreneur Giovanni Maria Solinas, born in 1926 in Ploaghe (SS), still very young, started selling homemade soft drinks. When he was only 29, he and his wife started producing Plubium, a completely original carbonated soft drink. In 1985, he founded A.L.B. Spa, an acronym for Acque Leggere e Bibite, and at the same time created the Smeraldina brand. Initially, the water was marketed in one-litre cardboard bricks. Acqua Smeraldina’s success soon crossed national borders, so much so that in 2005, the Smeraldina Corporation was founded in New York.
Quality and environmental awareness
What are the qualities that make this water so unique? Besides being extraordinarily pure, it has an excellent mix of sodium, chlorides, bicarbonates, calcium and magnesium. Plus, potassium’s percentage is perfect for benefiting the body. The company’s in-house laboratory constantly monitors all these characteristics so that the quality level remains unaltered. Not only that. The company – now run by Giovanni Maria’s four sons, Mauro, Riccardo, Marco and Nicola – pays special attention to the environmental sustainability of its production processes. Bottles are labelled with vegetable glue, and thanks to returnable bottles, 66% of bottles are reused directly.
The company’s focus on the environment does not stop here, however. It supports environmental awareness programmes in schools, is committed to using electric vehicles for logistics, and plants trees to offset CO2 emissions, all with the goal of becoming a carbon-positive society. Last but not least, it pays special attention to employees with a corporate welfare programme that includes medical insurance, accident contributions, and more.
An outstanding product worldwide
Today, A.L.B. Spa, led by President Mauro Solinas, sells millions of bottles and bricks of Smeraldina water in Italy and abroad. Sales abroad account for about 20 per cent of the total, with the remaining 80 per cent intended for the domestic Sardinian market. The company has a turnover of more than twenty million euros and dozens of employees.
Congratulations to those who bring the water of Sardinia to the world!
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