August / September 2010 Bottled Water Reporter - 36

lue o f

Stewart E. Allen
DS WATERS
Atlanta, Georgia IBWA Member Since 1986

a M Bers eM

It is often

“The singlebiggest benefit of IBWA membership is education.”

Bottled Water

said that a wise man knows what he does not know. Many IBWA members recognize that there is much that they do not know, and turn to our organization in search of answers to their questions. Stewart E. Allen, vice chairman of DS Waters and outgoing chair of the IBWA board of directors, is one such wise man. In turning to IBWA for answers when he first entered the bottled water industry, he began a relationship that has spanned two and a half decades and has had a profound, mutual effect. In 1977, Allen was a Pepsi route salesman who also happened to sell bottled water, a brand from Sweden. In 1988, when he went to work for Sparkling Spring Water, which originally operated in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and later expanded to own companies in Holland, England, Scotland, and North America, he joined IBWA as well as the Canadian and British bottled water associations. Within two years, he says, he had become 100-percent focused on bottled water; however, “I knew little or nothing about bottled water; my objective was to learn—about regulations, technical requirements, and suppliers.” In 1992, he became a member of the Canadian Bottled Water Association, eventually ascending to the role of president. Perhaps due to his early work experience for a multinational corporation, Allen’s worldview has always been broad. Not content to focus on his own small patch, he envisioned the entire globe as a potential market. In the late 1990s, he became the Canadian representative to the IBWA International Council, a committee that helped to manage and promote the growth of the bottled water industry around the world. In 1998, Allen served as founding chair of the International

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Council of Bottled Water Associations, an independent council of which IBWA is a member and which focuses on international food codes and regulations. Allen has served on the IBWA board since 1997, with a brief hiatus in the mid-2000s as he focused on his company’s acquisition of DS Waters. Shayron BarnesSelby, vice president of public affairs, was already there; Allen set a positive tone his first day, she says. “Stew came around to all of our offices to introduce himself and share his vision for the company,” she says. “About a month later, he and other executives held a meeting for all senior managers that really allowed us to drill down and learn the nuts and bolts of the strategy they had planned. Although our company had had its ups and downs, it became evident that Stew really got it.” When Allen rejoined IBWA in 2005, he became a member of the executive committee; the next year, he became a trustee of the Drinking Water Research Foundation. He credits his membership and involvement with all of those organizations for the upward trajectory of his career and the growth of his companies. “The single-biggest benefit of IBWA membership is education,” he says. “The technical services side has been huge for us—we really needed to learn about the industry and government regulations.” The association has also allowed Allen and his colleagues to identify and connect with suppliers as well as potential acquisition targets. IBWA’s Certified Plant Operator (CPO) program has been a valuable resource to Allen and a critical component of his company’s success. In DS Waters’ 30 plants, nearly 100 people have received CPO training. Allen notes that a CPO must be on site at all times in order for a plant to pass its third-party inspection audits. “That’s been a huge benefit to us as well,” he says. “I did not know how to train the people in the plant to prepare for an audit.” As he prepares to step down from his post, Allen sees IBWA’s mission as more crucial than ever: “There is no question that the bottled water industry is being attacked by special interest groups that are using misinformation about the environmental impact of our product,” he says. Allen takes great pride in the recent study that showed that the carbon footprint of bottled water is the lowest of all packaged beverages, and he leaves his fellow IBWA members with a challenge: “We must get that message out individually and collectively.”

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010

August / September 2010 Bottled Water Reporter

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