Shortly after the launch of Essentia fortified water in 1998, President and Chief Executive Officer Ken Uptain realized that the consumer market was not ready for it. “After about a year, I realized that this product was way ahead of its time,” he says. “It was non-source-dependent water; basically it was municipal water. It had all of these health benefits, but 99 percent of the water being sold in the country was all sourced waters … and the consumers just basically weren’t getting what we were trying to sell them.”
From about 1999 to 2008, Uptain let the Bothell, Wash.-based company “incubate” and took orders, worked on customer service, and worked to gain endorsements from the medical community until he thought the market was ready for the relaunch of Essentia.