Asia Pacic Viewpoint, Vol. 47, No.

3, December 2006 ISSN 1360-7456, pp342350

The Taste of Paradise: Selling Fiji and FIJI Water

John Connell
School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Email: jconnell@mail.usyd.edu.au

Abstract: Effective global competitiveness is rare in the Pacic islands, yet FIJI Water has been a major success story since 1997, exporting bottled water to the USA and elsewhere. A bland commodity has been linked to an exotic place, and sold to elite consumers, as a form of cultural capital. The company website and newspaper extol the virtues of a pristine product, produced in a natural context, in an environmentally sensitive manner. Marketing these themes and product placement have enabled success in a highly competitive market. Place has been used as a means of marketing perceived taste, distinctiveness and quality. Keywords: Fiji, marketing, niche, place, water

Try it for yourself FIJI Water is quenching and delicious, not to mention virtuous and efcacious. It is from a beautiful, far-away place, and is the true taste of an island paradise. (Waitrose Food Illustrated, 2004)

Small island states are usually disadvantaged in the global market by remoteness, scarce resources, shortages of skills, transport costs, absent economies of scale and other factors, hence their ability to compete is restricted. Global market access has thus tended to be effectively subsidised (as in the case of garments and sugar from Fiji) or has taken the form of very small niches (such as ylang-ylang from the Comoros). However, the former is at risk from movements towards global free trade whereas successful niches are often replicated elsewhere, as has been the case with Pacic kava exports, mainly from Fiji (Murray, 2000), or experience excessive domestic competition. Despite such constraints, in the past decade one very successful niche export has been developed in Fiji bottled mineral water. This paper examines the emergence of the market created by FIJI Water, and the relationship between that niche and the effective marketing of both the product and the place. The paper focuses on the manner in which food products are increasingly marketed by place, and how imaginative geographies of place are constructed as marketing tools. This is particularly the case with food products, and
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perhaps especially with water, which might in most contexts be seen to be an old, standardised, generic and homogeneous food, whose regional distinctiveness is far from obvious. The paper therefore looks at how the particular construction and use of information has enabled one source of water to successfully differentiate itself from other competitors, and in so doing has produced a new structure of bottled water marketing built and shaped around new types of comparative advantage, competition and power structures (Renting et al., 2003: 408), and, above all, shaped around place. In the last decade, bottled water has become a major food product and a new segment of the food market. This has followed both some degree of concern over the quality of tap water, and the perceived purity of spring water, and the status attached to drinking a bottled product. What is essentially the oldest food of all has been popularised and, through reinvention as a health product, sold to health-conscious individuals, in the same way that such products as extra virgin olive oil are marketed. Consumption is thus not merely an individual process but typies the emergence of a new, urbane consumer niche, where people use consumer goods to signify who they are and, in so doing, are constituted as a new cultural class (May, 1996). Through this process bottled water has become both fad and fashion. The global market for bottled water has rapidly grown, primarily in developed countries,
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2006.00310.x

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but also in relatively poor countries where concerns over water quality have some validity. From the late 1990s, the world bottled water market grew at an annual rate of over 10%, and has achieved double-digit growth in all but two years since the start of the 1990s (Cioletti, 2004). Major transnational food companies such as Nestle, Pepsi and Coca-Cola have all moved into water, and more than 120 bottled waters were introduced into the USA in 2004 (MacArthur, 2005). More than 2900 brands of bottled water are produced in over 115 countries (http://www.mineralwaters.org) and the majority of these stress some kind of link between product and place (as much as links with quality). Most recently, bottled water has been marketed in specic categories with, at least in one American context, the help of graphics: the spring section shows families, while puried shows an active lifestyle. Imported has a French Alps look, enhanced shows sports, and sparkling shows food, since its often served with dinner (Turcsik, 2004: 54). The rise of FIJI Water has reected this ongoing trend, as food (and drink) production has shifted from geographical anonymity to closer association with place. As the success of FIJI Water demonstrates, geography increasingly matters as a perceived arbiter of taste, distinctiveness and quality. This paper examines that success and its link to place. The rise of FIJI Water FIJI Water began in 1996 when the wealthy Canadian but Fiji-based hotelier David Gilmour founded Natural Waters of Viti Ltd after discovering a substantial artesian aquifer on the northern side of Viti Levu, Fijis main island. Gilmour was the owner of the exclusive Wakaya Club hotel, on its own private island off Levuka that he had purchased in 1972, where he noticed that guests (including specically Bill Gates) brought in their own bottled water. The company website suggests that the actual impetus came in a road-to-Damascus moment when Gilmour, playing golf with his wife, observed a fellow golfer on the tee ahead drinking water provided by the resort. At which point he was quoted to have said, Ive imported water from 10 000 miles away, probably from a highly polluted area, and I bet within 100 miles there
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is the most unique source in history (http:// www.jiwater.com). With geologists from his Barrick Gold Company, he conrmed a source of water in the Yaqara valley and took out a long-term lease on 20 acres, where the bottling plant was constructed, in his intention to produce a bottled water as unique as the islands themselves (The Story of FIJI Water; Natural Water of Viti, n.d.). The company was formed in 1996 and both bottled water production and the rst sales to the USA began in 1997. Subsequent years demonstrated exponential growth. From 1998 to 2000 production went from 10 million bottles to 25 million bottles, and a new factory had to be constructed. During the present century, production grew by about 60% per annum in every year, and within Fiji itself there was a similar rapid growth with sales increasing from 90 000 cases in 2001 to 250 000 cases in 2003 (C. Watkins, FIJI Water Finance Director, Suva, pers. comm., 2004). In terms of global and local sales, there was no hint of any slowing of the growth rate at the end of 2004, and plans to further redevelop and expand the plant were aimed at tripling production by February 2005. It represented a remarkable success story. More than 97% of production is exported with the major market being the USA (see below) where in October 2004 it was awarded the prestigious Secretary of States 2004 Award for Corporate Excellence, for its exemplary conduct, corporate responsibility and innovations in overseas operations. Ironically, although Gilmour resented the import of water to Fiji from 10 000 miles away, he had now very protably reversed that process. FIJI Water had undoubtedly arrived. The company pays a lease fee and royalties to the local landowners and has set up the Vatukaloko Natural Waters Trust Fund to provide hygiene, sanitation and education facilities in the ve nearby villages. The company pays an annual fee of about US$30 000 into the Fund. It has constructed ve kindergartens in the landowners villages and has provided scholarships to enable kindergarten teachers to gain formal education qualications. Villagers are given free laundry, and transport to work, and wages that are above the Fiji minimum wage. In a wider context, the company has provided disaster relief in Fiji. 343

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The company employs only one expatriate in Fiji hence there have been substantial employment gains, directly at the plant and in associated transport, marketing and ofce functions. Some hundred people are employed in Fiji and about 50 overseas, most in the USA (where they are mostly employed in marketing). The company employs about 100 villagers, mainly at the plant, where 90 people are employed, and in transport. Both ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians are employed. In a relatively remote part of the island, it has made a signicant contribution to livelihoods. What lies beneath: Selling place FIJI Water has developed a highly successful branding strategy that emphasises the imaginative geography of Fiji. The bottle itself (Fig. 1) stresses the Natural Artesian Water, and the label entitled Taste of Paradise observes, alongside tropical owers, a waterfall and a map that deliberately enhances the isolation of Fiji, that:
The origin of FIJI Natural Artesian Water is rainfall, which over decades lters into an aquifer deep beneath volcanic highlands and

pristine tropical forests on the main island of Viti Levu in Fiji. Separated by over 1500 miles of the open Pacic from the nearest continent, this virgin ecosystem protects one of the purest waters in the world.

The company website develops these themes in detail:

Birth by re. The geology of purity. To appreciate the water, you must understand its source. FIJI Water comes from Fiji, a chain of 332-coral-rimmed islands lost in the vast blue reaches of the South Pacic. It comes to you from a virgin ecosystem far from acid rain, herbicides, pesticides and other pollutants found close to most water sources. Its home is the Yaqara Valley on the island of Viti Levu, close to the sacred Three Sisters peaks of Nakauvadra Mountains, revered for centuries as the ancestral home of the rst Fijians. This is water born of re. Water that pours from a vast artesian aquifer sheltered beneath a valley formed by the furnace of the earth itself, 4 million years ago.

Figure 1.

FIJI Water bottles

The company promotional video, The Story of FIJI Water, further emphasised that Yaqara is an ancient valley, virtually untouched by the hand of man, where nature has worked for a thousand years and its company newspaper, the Paradise Times, records that a Fijian spirit Degi the omniscient snake god guards the brand new FIJI Water factory (Paradise Times, 2004). Geological antiquity is combined with social antiquity. Social history thus proclaims this as the home of the rst Fijians (although there is no archaeological evidence for this), who are also stated to have had no apparent impact on the environment. The website provides a geological model of the nearby mountains, entitled Pristine, protected and sustainable, that shows rain water falling on the mountains remains conned, straining to reach the surface in a naturally pressurized, sealed chamber that protects the water from all outside inuence. Indeed, the website notes that not only is the aquifer in a virgin ecosystem at the edge of a primitive rainforest but winds that carry acid rain and pollution to other parts of the planet just dont come our way. Moreover,
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Carbon dating tells us this water fell as rain more than 450 years ago: 200 years before the Industrial Revolution. And it has been percolating ever since through layers of silica, basalt and sandstone. The result is a perfect natural ltration system, so perfect that municipal water systems try to emulate this kind of formation when designing water treatment plants.

In various ways, purity is said to be inherent in the product, hence consumers might reasonably trust in its purity and consequent safety.1 Advertising material is replete with references to the environment, as is the intermittent company newspaper, the Paradise Times (initially called The Fiji Current). It is argued in parallel that the taste of the water is distinctive and it owes this distinctiveness to its specic natural origins. It boasts a taste of soft freshness that distinguishes it from the competition; lyricism is even more evident here:
The Taste of Paradise. Rainfall in a Fijian forest is a symphony of sound in a theater of green. Somewhere overhead raindrops strike palm fronds that move with the wind, clicking and tapping like hundreds of castanets. Around you is a glimpse of Eden; giant leaves large enough to lie on, ferns like trees, bamboo and grasses taller than a man. And the rain, formed in clouds above the blue Pacic, dances down through the forest canopy and seeps into the rich volcanic soil, wending its way to the aquifer far below the forest oor.

Prosaic this is not. As the website further notes, You can also taste the unique mineral composition, because geology creates its own taste prole, distinctive as a ngerprint. FIJI Water is argued to be high in colloidal silica, essential for maintaining good health, and with a slight alkalinity that helps balance acidity, and low in minerals that create an unpleasant aftertaste. This is what gives FIJI Water the soft, delicious, smooth taste Florence Fabricant raved about in The New York Times. Colloidal silica a compound whose properties are unlikely to be widely known contributes to the butter-smooth texture and sweet character of the water. This also explains why FIJI Water is the accessory of choice for The Beautiful People supermodels swear that it makes their skin
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elastic and retards the aging process (Paradise Times, 2004). All this emphasises the role of the healthy body in promotions, the common sense idea among consumers that products made with fewer chemical substances are healthier, and ultimately that consumers can belong to an elite market. Production and marketing similarly have environmental consequences. The website notes how the bottles are made of resin rather than glass because they are unbreakable and it is kinder to the environment, requires one-third less energy to recycle than glass, creates less solid waste per unit of content and enables a higher recycle rate than glass. Very little bottled water is actually sold in bottles. Similarly, the website notes how the square bottle was a conscious choice as it allows for more compact, secure and efcient shipping. Simply put you can pack more water onto a pallet with a square bottle, with less wasted space. So the energy cost to a ship is a little bit less per bottle. In addition FIJI Water leaves the islands on cargo ships that are returning, basically empty, to the U.S. mainland. This is simply an ecological bonus. So, there is no added burden of extra trafc in and out of Fiji. In practice, FIJI Water exported to the USA is loaded on container ships travelling from Auckland, New Zealand, to the American west coast. The resin for the bottles comes from the USA, the caps from Taiwan and the labels from New Zealand. The resin bottles are argued to be superior because breakage is rare; they are lighter and easier to stock, are less costly to recycle and take up less space as solid waste, and use less energy in all these processes (Fiji Current, 2001). On the website, it is emphasised that the water is drawn into the plant and bottled in a completely sealed system hence until you unscrew the cap FIJI Water never meets the compromised air of the 21st century. Marketing is thus not only linked to the purity of the natural environment of paradise but to production processes that emphasise sustainable development, in apparent contrast with most competitors. Even the workforce is seen to convey distinct advantages: the nal ingredient of success for FIJI Water is the people chosen to work for the company. FIJI Water founders value passion, integrity and intellect and these are the qualities central to the character of the Viti Levu team. 345

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David Gilmour has stated, When I rst came here I realized there was something very unusual about the people. There is a sense of welcome, a sense of tradition and civility, a world of caring, whereas the website extends this notion: There is no word for stress in Fijian. Growing up here surrounded by some of natures best handiwork, engenders a serenely positive outlook that comes from the core of the individual, the family, the culture itself. In Fiji you feel a relaxed attentiveness that is in short supply in other parts of the spinning world. Such uncritical and essentialist notions of past and present Fijian culture are crucial to the image of the enterprise. Ultimately, these themes converge in the words of the company Vice President, John Harris, who argues that there is this great image of this tropical paradise but the beautiful thing is its true, it exists, its all around us (The Story of FIJI Water). The name of Fiji alone is seen by some as a major marketing device; as the owner of an American online bottled water store noted, It sells because of is exotic sounding name (The Palm Beach Post, 2002; quoted in Paradise Times, 2002). As the rst Paradise Times oriented to a British market observes,
Fiji is as far away as you can go before coming home again. Fifteen hundred miles from the nearest land mass, the 330 Fijian Islands straddle the International Date Line [sic], punctuating the lapis-blue unpolluted South Pacic with splashes of green fringed by fairytale, face-powder beaches and neon turquoise reefs. The archipelago that is home to FIJI Water has a god-blessed climate and softly spoken broadly smiling islanders, making it a sought-after hideaway for the very rich. (Paradise Times, UK Supplement, 2004)

Finally, FIJI Water may offer a virtual travel experience. The website notes, Open a bottle of FIJI water. And remember this we saved you a trip to Fiji. Website and Times claims are grandiose, inaccurate, clich-ridden, essentialist and strategic, and they are highly effective. Meeting the market Although marketing place has been crucial to success, so too has the packaging of the water in a square plastic bottle printed with images of 346

Fiji, and the extraordinary success of product placement. The bottle has given the product enhanced designer appeal, at a time when almost all competitors use familiar round bottles, and further suggested the uniqueness and particular quality of the product. The bottle was designed to provide a three-dimensional label. Company President, Edward Slade, argued that we literally broke the mold with the package because its square and its got three dimensional graphics and its positioning is different (quoted in Anonymous, 2000: 70). He went on to note that what Fiji Waters done is go out there with a package that clearly looks like its worth more money and weve gotten people to pay more money for us (Anonymous, 2000: 70). Shape was supposedly enhanced through place. As Slade argued, Most bottled waters are from cold, mountainous regions. The associations with these places are great, but theyre not just distinctive. Water from Fiji. Nobody was playing in that particular arena (quoted in Anonymous, 2000: 70). As the company Vice President, John Harris, suggested, When people look at our bottle they like to transport themselves to a place that is tropical, a place that is serene (The Story of FIJI Water). Packaging place was an invaluable marketing tool. Few products have been as successful with placement as FIJI Water, in terms of the frequency of its appearance in lms and the endorsements provided for it by prominent individuals. That placement has extended into articles in prominent newspapers that tend to eulogise the product, and the company has also sponsored causes such as AIDS and breast cancer research through fun runs. FIJI Water has been placed in several prominent, long-running American TV drama series, including Ally McBeal, Friends, Sex and the City, Buffy, The Sopranos and West Wing. The lm star Whoopi Goldberg has been a strong advocate of FIJI Water and other stars such as Cameron Diaz, Halle Berry, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kevin Costner and Reese Witherspoon have been photographed with FIJI Water, as have such celebrities as Tina Turner, Hugh Hefner, Martin Scorsese, Venus Williams and the boxer Lennox Lewis, during one title ght (where the bottle was covered up for sponsorship reasons but was given away by the shape). The golfer Gary Player is quoted: I cant tell you how
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important good hydration is, particularly in the summer months. . . . Drink FIJI Water. Why would you put anything but the best in your body? . . . at my age Im entitled to a little selfindulgence (Fiji Current, 2000; Paradise Times, 2003a). Gourmet cooks, such as Nobu Matsuhisa, are quoted along similar lines: Soft water is best for cooking and I have not found a softer water than FIJI Water (Paradise Times, 2003a). Health and nutrition were repeatedly emphasised. By 2003 it was said to be the in thing as far as accessories are concerned for the Hollywood glitterati (Ragogo, 2003: 29). However, this has now begun to come close to parody, where in the lm Jesus is Magic (2005) the comedienne Sarah Silverman, in diva mode, imperiously demands a bottle of FIJI Water. Various upmarket hotels were quoted as preferring FIJI Water. The general manager of the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, which places a bottle and two glasses next to all beds, noted, Its all about being reective of peoples lifestyles (Paradise Times, 2003a). The Times frequently listed other hotels and restaurants where the product was sold. Thus, the general manager of Trump International Hotel and Tower is quoted as saying:
In our quest for excellence at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York we try to offer our guests the very best of everything. FIJI Water is clearly the best water available. Initially we offered FIJI Water as a welcome amenity and at turn-down. Once our clients tried FIJI Water they wanted it served throughout the hotel. The soft, smooth taste and the sleek packaging of FIJI Water are a perfect complement to our property so we now serve it in our hotel rooms, restaurant and spa. (Paradise Times, 2003b)

Similar themes and messages ll the pages of the Times. Some stressed the initial resistance to a plastic bottle from hotels where only crystal was hitherto used, until FIJI Water devised a silver slipper so that the plastic bottle could be served in style. Doctors of various kinds have been quoted in the Times, and even contributed short articles, with their support for its perceived health properties. More generally, the Times and the website extol the virtues of water as an essential health and nutritional product. Water is seen as
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living water, which in biophysical terms is based on three main principles: water is living energy; water has memory; water is a carrier of information in contrast to processed waters that are considered bio-physically dead (Paradise Times, 2003c). In the world of advertising water is far from homogeneous, even if the taste is not on the palate but in the imagination. Taste tests are argued to show that FIJI Water performs well in blindfold tests, and separate taste tests cited in the Paradise Times from several American newspapers naturally support this. Unsurprisingly, the website and the Times are happy to quote statements such as water worthy of walking on (Boca Raton Magazine), morning dew from the Wings of God (Too Much Coffee Man) and Treat your loved ones to a clean taste of the tropics (Town and Country). Correspondents to the website http://www. mineralwaters.org provide a rather wider range of perspectives. The Times also stresses how FIJI Water is regulated as a food product, unlike tap water, and excludes such additives as chlorine. It has also been certied kosher by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. Ironically, American tap water is said to be one of the cleanest waters on tap anywhere in the world whereas in Australia, the Australian Consumers Association has stated that the health benets of drinking bottled water are minimal, and thus described the industry as one of the cleverest gold-mine products of all, given its virtually free on tap (Nowlan, 2004: 30). The Australian Consumers Association has also pointed to the fact that the bottled water industry creates considerable packaging waste compared with tap water. (Plastic bottles and their caps are both in the top 10 items collected in Clean Up Australia days, and a comparable situation probably exists elsewhere.) However, bottled water has a much sexier image than the tap variety, and both consumers and landll sites are paying the price (Nowlan, 2004: 30). Long-distance transport creates high energy costs and means considerable food miles. Shrewd marketing brought expanding exports. By 2003 it was said to have become Fijis biggest export (Ragogo, 2003). Subsequent data suggest that it is probably about the fth most important export earner, worth about F$35 million per year, but could be ranked alongside sugar, clothing and gold. As water is 347

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Figure 2.

First day cover, November 2002: FIJI Water bottle, plant, delivery van and consumers

aggregated with other mineral products, including gold, in Fijis trade statistics its actual status is uncertain. However, its export role has been invaluable at a time when several of Fijis traditional exports, notably sugar and clothing, have been declining in value. The major overseas market is the USA where by late 2004, at the time Gilmour sold the company, it was the second largest source of imported water in the USA, after Evian from France. The company was then exporting 45 million litres per year, about 95% of which was going to the USA, and its market value was estimated to be around A$63 million (Sydney Morning Herald, 2004). By 2003, FIJI Water was going to about nine overseas countries and that number has steadily increased. In 2003, relatively new markets were the UK, Australia, Dominican Republic, Mexico and parts of the Caribbean including the Bahamas. Regional markets had also been established in Samoa and Tonga. In the following year, the company was seeking to add Germany and Japan to the list of major destinations, as part of a wider push to enter Europe and South-East Asia. After the USA, markets have largely been strategically chosen by a combination of proximity (such as Australia), and the extent to which bottled water is already drunk (which is related to some degree of afuence). Germany was targeted because of the very substantial amounts of bottled water consumed there, and Japan because of the thousands of vending machines that would provide easy access. The international market represents something of a geography of exclusivity. Although FIJI Water reaches every American state except 348

Alaska, its coverage is very uneven. California is relatively over-represented and there are many more stockists in Santa Monica alone than in the whole of Alabama, Arkansas and West Virginia. Similarly in the UK, Chelsea has more stockists than such northern counties as Derbyshire and Yorkshire, whereas the four eastern states of Canada have no stockists at all. In Australia, Sydney is over-represented relative to other cities, and such harbour-side suburbs as Elizabeth Bay and Double Bay are well supplied compared with western suburbs like Penrith where FIJI Water was slow to arrive. Locally in Fiji, it has gained a large market and considerable support. The author was in a Fijian cinema on one occasion when it appeared in the lm Paycheck, being handed to Ben Afeck, to the applause of the cinema audience. Gilmour has received the Order of Fiji and in 2002 Fiji brought out a set of four stamps, effectively legitimating the virtues of Fiji Natural Water (Fig. 2), literally illustrating the importance of the product at a national level. The future of a niche FIJI Water has emerged to meet the needs of a growing health food market, and has strategically sold the image of Fiji as an environmental paradise. This is part of a wider context where generic tropical islands have become gratuitous advertising backdrops to all manner of goods, and especially holidays, where primitivism and the harmony of culture and nature are constantly reinvented (Connell, 2003: 574). Isolation, as remoteness from industrialisation, has actually enhanced the image of FIJI Water, rather than
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being a marketing disadvantage. Indeed, although the greater global interest in food quality has tended to result in shorter food supply chains and reduced food miles, for FIJI Water the trend has been quite the opposite distance and exoticism are marketed as advantages. This has also occurred with particular wines and cheeses and fair trade products like coffee and tea (Smith, 1996; Renting et al., 2003: 400), although these have tended to be either relatively close to the main markets (in the former case) or always at a great distance (in the latter). The company itself argues that, as people become more educated, the source and content of food and drink become more important (The Story of FIJI Water). At the same time, this has reected the global shift to natural foods, and the reinvention and popularisation of old foods as innovative products geared to health-conscious individuals, alongside the marketing of a pristine product and place. Place and quality are critical strategic marketing mechanisms. FIJI Water is thoroughly embedded with valueladen information when it reaches the consumer (as the bottle label and its design emphasise) that ensures that both consumers and retailers make connections with the place of production, and thus with health and quality. This embeddedness is even more evident in the website and company newspaper designed primarily for retailers. The positive reception and endorsement of these values has meant that FIJI Water has become an excellent example of how the successful translation of information allows products to be differentiated from more anonymous commodities and command premium prices if the encoded information is considered valuable by the consumers (Renting et al., 2003: 400). In so doing, it has carved out one of the most successful marketing niches in the contemporary Pacic, for a product that ironically may actually be less distinct than almost any other Pacic island export. Success in marketing what is essentially a free and tasteless product emphasises the extreme manner in which the signs of commodities have become more important than the commodity itself (Thrift, 1994: 89). Part of this success has come through the marketing of place, both in its purity and isolation, but also through the marketing of particular components of that place its distinctiveness, the uniqueness of both place and
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product, being produced on site (right over the source) and by a traditional and caring workforce. The website is replete with smiling indigenous Fijians. Both place and process dene the quality of the product. Marketing combines novelty (an exotic Pacic island group) and fashion. Authenticity is implicit in the link between the commodity and an ancient place and people, and is rooted in notions of tradition and taste. The company has thus sought to create elements of what can be seen as distinct local characteristics that place Fiji, the Yaqara valley and local residents as part of a fair trade context, in which everyone gains. Marketing emphasises difference, and even authenticity, as evocations of exotic, far-off realms in language that effectively deploys many of the colonial tropes and writing strategies that have been identied in recent postcolonial theory (Smith, 1996: 516517). The notion of a unique taste conveys distinction, or cultural capital, on elite consumers (Bourdieu, 1984), as they are marked out as somehow different, exceptional and ultimately superior. An enormous amount of symbolic meaning has been invested in water. Many Pacic market niches have been unsuccessful in the past, primarily because of global competition from better-placed sources, hence crops such as ginger, kava and squash have struggled to survive as major exports from Pacic island states. FIJI Water has creatively produced a unique niche within the Pacic by establishing an idyllic product identity in a very distant market. Its success at marketing place offers possibilities for other island niches, and one of the fastest growing national exports is now a range of cosmetics made by Pure Fiji, which uses island fragrances and products, employs 500 people and has a major American market (Baselala, 2003). The quest for new niches continues. The global market for bottled water continues to grow but an increasing number of competitors have begun production. Almost all are in larger states nearer to key markets and most also emphasise close links with nature, in name and bottle label, design and wording. Although transport costs are disadvantageous to FIJI Water, the market is primarily of more afuent consumers to whom price differentials are less important than perceived purity and status. Yet, despite competing for an elite market, FIJI Water does not, and cannot, sell for signicantly more 349

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than its competitors. In Fiji there has also been local competition. Bula Water entered the market in 2003 (selling more cheaply than FIJI Water) and two other companies, Aqua Fiji and Diamond Aqua, followed. In 2004, FIJI Water fought and lost a lawsuit against Aqua Fiji on the grounds that Aqua had copied FIJI Waters labelling. Despite following some of FIJI Waters design concepts, none have made a signicant local (or international) impact, although a new company in nearby Tavua, exporting Island Chill water, became successful at the end of 2005. FIJI Water faces challenges to safeguard the exclusivity of the product as markets become prone to imitations and possible downward pressure on prices. The bottled water industry is characterised by erce competition, low margins, a capital-intensive nature and constant change, so future market success can never be certain. A regional market remains in place both in Fiji itself and in neighbouring island states (such as Tonga and the Cook Islands) where there is no local competition and more realistic concerns over water quality (although market size is small). New European, Japanese and other markets may prove successful. In simple economic terms, market success is no more uncertain than for any other Fijian export goods. For any product that depends so heavily on its image, future market success is unusually complicated. As the water is depicted as having come from an idyllic place, were such a perception of Fiji to change, perhaps following political unrest, the market might respond negatively. Here too remoteness may be an advantage. Health perception may also change; in some quarters there is cynicism over the marketing of a product designed (some would say) to taste of nothing. As the managing director of one company has recently argued Water is one place people psychologically go for its perceived health benets . . . [Marketers] are trying to make the category more exciting. Consequently, it is argued that the water market is shifting to fruit-avoured waters (MacArthur, 2005). Intensied competition and relentless capitalist innovation and transformation are certain. Yet, ultimately, the elite and exotic status of FIJI Water may primarily wane with familiarity and market success; in terms of food consumption cultural capital is notoriously ckle and transient. 350

Note
1 In response to FIJI Waters constant claims that its water is exceptionally pure through coming from a remote aquifer and being 450 years old, one of its competitors, Trinity Springs, advertises that it is sourced from the Idaho Batholith a chunk of granite the size of New Hampshire and that the water has been carbon dated at 16 000 years old and was rain and snow at the end of the last ice age (Turcsik, 2004: 56).

References
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