Co-working spaces and office spaces around the country have been seeking out tech-friendly ways to keep their snack and drink options diverse and well-stocked. But a variety of sodas and flavored waters in individual bottles and cans creates a major waste problem—even if recycling is easily available and made a priority.
Enter Bevi, a smart water product that connects a central water line to a filtration system that not only makes tap water drinkable, but tasty. Each Bevi stand allows users to customize their water from anything from still, watermelon-flavored water to sparkling, flavorless water and anything in between. Each Bevi subscription comes with a handful of flavor options for a period of time, and each station replaces tens of thousands of single-use water bottles or cans each month.
We spoke with one of Bevi’s co-founders, Eliza Becton, on how Bevi is changing the future of zero waste in the office once and for all.
Grit Daily: Please share your adventures prior to Bevi.
Eliza Becton: Before Bevi, I worked for an ocean stewardship non-profit as well as various design roles at startup companies in the Boston area. Bevi’s mission is something I hold very close and have been working on for most of my career. I am grateful to go to work every day tackling a big problem in a really fun way.
GD: For the uninitiated, what exactly is Bevi’s product?
EB: Bevi is a high tech, flavored water machine that offers pure, sparkling and naturally flavored water, along with other healthy personalized beverages, without the waste. Our mission is to eliminate single use bottles and cans, making the best beverages instantly available. Each machine displaces over 30,000 bottles each year and to date we have displaced roughly 200 million bottles collectively.
GD: What makes a water cooler “smart” anyway?
EB: The idea behind Bevi was to make a water machine more convenient and enjoyable to use than a single use bottle or can. It purifies water at the point of use, mixes the water with highly concentrated natural flavors and uses remote inventory monitoring within the machine to keep track of maintenance needs such as what flavor is low and needs restocking. Specifically, this process cuts out unnecessary transportation and packaging, which has been proven to be the largest environmental concerns within the beverage industry today.
GD: What’s wrong with the basic water cooler in everyone’s office now?
EB: Bevi offers a solution that makes staying hydrated and healthy easy and fun. We offer a variety of options for consumers to customize their beverage; from pure, filtered water to sparkling Strawberry Lemongrass, all with natural ingredients and zero or low calorie. We also offer enhancements such as electrolytes and natural caffeine, along with the ability to control the strength of your flavor. Bevi also saves time from stocking bottles or ordering supplies—the Bevi machine can replace pallets of cans and bottles, and also tracks when supplies are low in the machine and let the user know.
GD: What do you do with all that data that each machine collects?
EB: The data helps us manage inventory and quality for a fleet of machines. It tells us when flavors or CO2 [are] out, when filters run low and when service is needed. The Bevi automatically shuts off flavors that reach expiration, so we can offer high quality ingredients. Additionally, we can tell what flavors are popular and unpopular among consumers, so we can ensure we are only developing flavors that consumers want to drink.
GD: If Bevi is so awesome, why shouldn’t we jettison all bottles, everywhere, altogether?
EB: Seventy-three percent of consumers say they are willing to modify their consumption behaviors to help our planet. Millennials are driving the charge by opting for more sustainable food and beverage choices and showing that they are willing to pay more for them. That being said, eliminating single use plastic bottles and cans is a big problem that will require many solutions with the same intent as Bevi within homes, on the go, at work, at the gym, etc.
Bevi covers a significant use within offices across the country, which is making a huge impact. To date, Bevi is already providing an alternative to single use plastics for over 600,000 employees and is helping users reduce their carbon footprint. It won’t happen overnight, and we will need to meet consumers where they are, but together we will get there.
