Mountain Valley Spring Co.

In sports it’s called playing within yourself. For 135-year-old Mountain Valley Spring Co., being selective on where it competes and adding business that complements existing ventures is the key to maintaining success.

Oh, and having really tasty water doesn’t hurt.

The company and its 285 employees operate in several niches of the bottled-water and beverage-packaging industries. The Mountain Valley Spring Water brand, which bottles spring water from a single source near Hot Springs, is the country’s oldest bottled-water brand.

The company also owns seven water-bottling and delivery operations under the Clear Mountain name and operates a plastic container manufacturing business, Veriplas. Both of those outfits are based in Little Rock.

The common theme for all the businesses, according to Chief Marketing Officer Jim Karrh, is having a very specific market niche.

On the Mountain Valley Spring Water side, that means catering to the taste-conscious and the premium-conscious consumer.

The company can’t compete in price with American bottled-water giants, such as Nestlé and Coca-Cola, so it doesn’t try.

The same is true with the Clear Mountain division. “We focus on markets where we can be a market leader,” Karrh said. “And sometimes that means we have to be in second- and third-tier markets.”

In the plastics business, the company focuses on innovation, offering the industry’s only recyclable, one-way, 4-gallon bottle.

The company also makes the most of its acquisitions, such as Clear Mountain’s purchase of Mountain Valley in 2004.

“There was a time when Mountain Valley was not given proper attention,” Karrh said of its previous owner, Sammons Enterprises Inc. of Dallas.

Its new owner, true to form, has worked to put the water in arenas where it can compete.

“The key is don’t be commoditized,” Karrh said. “Don’t be just another [player], whatever you’re doing.”

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