Going to scale with aspirational safe water delivery

Insights from Antenna visiting Spring Health in rural India

Antenna’s long-term partner Spring Health delivers 10 and 20 litre jars of safe water to households in rural Odisha – a unique aspiration for customers in the poorest regions. Since 2011 Antenna Foundation supports the company as technical advisor to bring safe water to the field, with the technological solutions that seem most adapted (technologically, socially, economically) – together they aim for scale.

The unique value proposition of Spring Health is convenience and prestige of delivering safe drinking water at the doorstep at a radically affordable price. Customers convinced of safe water are very likely to purchase delivered water as prestigious good.

Depending on the location and the level of water contamination Spring Health uses 2 robust and adaptable technologies: Water chlorination with locally produced chlorine through WATA technology and the multi-step filtration and coagulation technology Auropure allowing the treatment of even heavily contaminated water. Each kiosk is run by a local entrepreneur who co-invests in the installation of the kiosk (CapEx) under a franchising model. Spring Health invests in the installation of water tanks, filters, water testing and offers branding and (social) marketing activities. Spring Health’s staff also overlook business expansion, entrepreneur training, and kiosk installation while the entrepreneurs are responsible for purifying, filling and delivering the water.

Thanks to the partnership with TRANSFORM, Spring Health and Antenna Foundation will be able to scale up the water delivery model to reach 200’000 people by end of 2020. Stay tuned for seeing how Spring Health will progress and find more information on the innovative business model here.