Innovation, Trade and Rural Development
May 24, 2007

The following statement was issued by the Honourable Trevor Taylor, Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development. It was also read in the House of Assembly:

Northern Peninsula Company to Market Premium Iceberg Water in Texas

I would like to inform my colleagues about an investment the Provincial Government is making in a company on the Northern Peninsula.

Recently, the Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development approved a $200,000 loan from its Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Fund for Canada Ice Enterprises of St. Anthony. The company will use this funding, as well as investments from other sources, to implement its marketing plan and for working capital. The company is expected to create 14 jobs this year.

Canada Ice produces bottled water from icebergs. Its product is called 80 Degrees North Iceberg Water and is marketed as the �purest water on the planet.� On a parts per billion basis, PCBs and other pollutants are not detectable, because the ice used by Canada Ice comes from icebergs formed thousands of years ago, long before the age of industrialization and pollution.

The bottled water market is valued between $150 and $200 million a year in Canada, and $7 billion in the United States. The market is segmented in three tiers. There is store-brand water; branded water; and premium water. Canada Ice�s water is premium water. It competes with the very best and highest priced waters available to consumers in the world.

Canada Ice is targeting markets in Canada and the United States, in particular Texas. This year it will launch its product in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. One Texas chain alone will be putting the product into almost 600 of its stores. Canada Ice is available in Pioneer Petroleum, Sunoco Stations and 7-11 stores in Ontario, as well as Irving stations in Atlantic Canada. It is found in Sobeys stores in Newfoundland and Labrador and will soon be available in Sobeys locations throughout the Maritimes. 80 Degrees North is also found in many other retail outlets in Atlantic Canada, and is served on Provincial Airlines flights.

Canada Ice has taken a commodity that we have in relative abundance, icebergs, and turned it into an economic opportunity to position itself in the premium segment of a growing industry. Our government is pleased to support this innovative company and many other companies throughout the province, particularly in rural areas. To demonstrate our commitment to rural Newfoundland and Labrador, the Provincial Government allocated more than $70 million in Budget 2007 to stimulate business growth, to create jobs and to strengthen the economies of rural areas.

I congratulate Canada Ice on its energy and enterprise, and I wish it every success in the future.

2007 05 24                                                 1:55 p.m.

 


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