That acquifer became the source of La Vie mineral water, sold by a company that Forey set up and later sold to what is now Nestlé Waters.
Forey went with his son, who is a pilot, on an aerial survey in Cambodia over the Angkor temples and 30km away to the mountainous region of Kulen, birth place of the Khmer civilisation.
He spotted an unexpected waterfall close to the top of the Mount Kulen, as well as several rivers flowing to the plain of Angkor. Having bought 9 hectares of land, he decided to drill at the foot of Mount Kulen and found a deep aquifer with the purest natural mineral water in South East Asia. He built a factory to bottle directly from the aquifer and then asked Sipa to propose a complete mineral water PET bottling plant solution.
Sipa supplied its own SFL 6/6 linear stretch-blow molding unit, integrated with a complete set of downstream bottling and packaging equipment sourced locally. The line produces bottles in 30cl, 50cl and 1.5 litre formats. Sipa and Kulara Water are now working together to develop new designs for premium and lightweight bottles too.
Kulara Water, headquartered in Phnom Penh, is selling its Eau Kulen mineral water to the best restaurants and hotels in the country, as well as top supermarkets. The company is now targeting retailers all across the country. Eau Kulen is widely considered to be the only pure mineral water from a local source.
Source: Sipa
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