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Problem
Hydration
Have you ever felt like you had a slight headache and had more trouble focusing after a long day of meetings? You are not alone!
Studies by Sciensano show that around two-thirds of the Belgian adult population do not drink sufficient water. Instead of the recommended 1.5 to 2 litres a day, most of us get to less than 1 litre daily, despite knowing that this can cause a mild headache. Furthermore, studies show that even mild dehydration causes a marked decline in cognitive ability
Health
After the health crisis in 2020, more people started to take care of their health and well-being. Companies have also followed this trend and started removing soft drink vending machines from the workplace. The only problem this creates is that employees are now left with the choice between water and coffee. So, there is no longer a possibility of alternation between drinks, and this is something people care about.
Environmental impact
Boyan Slat, a Dutch student, was stunned when he saw more plastic bottles than marine animals during a diving excursion in Greece. This led him to found The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organisation that aims to clean up the thousands of tonnes of plastic waste polluting our rivers and oceans.
Much of that waste comes from single-use PET bottles in which our drinking water and soft drinks are packaged. In a recent study at the University of Ghent, Thomassen et al. estimated the total carbon footprint of bottled water to be 260 grams per litre. That does not seem much, but multiplied by the total consumption of bottled water in Belgium, it turns out that our annual consumption generates as much CO2 as 270,000 passenger cars! Strangely enough, there is not such a big difference between single-use PET bottles and reusable (glass) containers when you look at the total life cycle because road transport plays a significant role in both cases. Don't you think it's crazy to put water from the Alps in plastic bottles and then transport it hundreds of kilometres by road when fresh water comes out of the tap? Tap water only has a carbon footprint of 0.2 grams per litre.
Social impact
Finally, we look beyond today and Belgium: with our 1 litre for 1 litre programme, in collaboration with MadeBlue, for every litre of water taken from our dispensers, we pledge to donate one litre of drinking water to projects that give children access to clean drinking water where it is not yet readily available.
Solution: Water becomes magic
Seeing these problems, two Belgian students started thinking about how to encourage people to live healthier lives and drink more water without filling the oceans with plastic.
Thus was born the Hydrofix ONE, the first compact water dispenser that can transform tap water into an almost infinite range of flavoured waters. Functional ingredients such as vitamins, minerals, or electrolytes can be added as required. All flavours are calorie-free, contain no sugar (no, not even cane sugar like most alternatives), and consist of 100% natural flavour.
Hydrofix ONE
The Hydrofix ONE aims to address these problems in an office context. It differs from existing solutions (see Market section) in several ways.
The solution is based on microdosing. Only 1 to 1,5 ml of flavour concentrate is added per litre of water. It differs from the bag-in-box flavour syrups that are mostly used (mainly inverted sugar syrup-based). This has several advantages:
Cartridge-based solution: replacing a flavour cartridge is as easy as replacing the cartridge in a printer and can be done by the customer
Limited weight: cartridges only weigh 100 – 150 grams, which means they can just be sent in a package via mail
Highly concentrated and sugar-free: The flavours are supplied as highly concentrated, sugar-free solutions, ensuring they do not provide a breeding ground for bacterial growth. Being sugar free, our products are also zero-calorie and safe for diabetics.
Variety of tastes: Hydrofix's flavour base is neutral, so it can offer a broader variety of tastes. Do you want a salty, spicy, or umami flavour? No problem for the Hydrofix ONE.
The Hydrofix ONE is an intelligent water dispenser. Every pour (serving type, flavour, volume) is recorded, and the appliance is monitored remotely. Combined with a touch of artificial intelligence, it provides valuable insights to Hydrofix and the customer. It allows Hydrofix to predict when the CO2 cylinder or a particular flavour will run out, which flavour (profiles) are in demand and, combined with other sources such as weather forecasts, which (new) flavours are best to suggest. In this way, the customer has total peace of mind.
Hydrofix App
Let’s zoom in on the employees. Although they are not the decision-makers, they are influencers. And remember: Hydrofix’s mission is to encourage people to drink sufficient water – and enjoy doing so. Therefore, Hydrofix will provide an app with which an employee can set up a preferred flavour profile and automatically track how much water is consumed. It can provide that information to a health app the employee uses (like Garmin or Apple Health) but can also send notifications during the day if water consumption is not on par with the set goal.
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