Dealing with Water Shortages & Summer Heat

A regular person can survive about three days without water. But how long can a visitor of the Indianapolis Zoo last without water when it’s 98 degrees outside? The summer right after Covid was tough. Staff shortages, supply chain problems, and inadequately high demand were all part of our daily routine. There is no doubt that one of the top products in every amusement park is drinking water, and Indianapolis Zoo was not an exception. In the middle of the summer, we ended up with no drinking water at all since Pepsi had an issue with production. Here is the story of how we dealt with water shortages under the summer heat.

Indianapolis Zoo cares a lot about the safety and prosperity of wildlife. They replaced 95% of plastic bottles with more environmentally-friendly aluminum cans, and Pepsi agreed to help the Zoo. But there was a minor issue. It turned out that the market for water cans was tiny. Even though we ordered four or five pallets of canned water per week, it still wasn’t enough for the giant Pepsi corporation to focus their production on Aquafina cans. Similar to us and many other companies, Pepsi struggled with hiring people post-lockdown, so their priorities shifted to their mass-market products such as Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and MTN Dew. We were left behind, but our customers didn’t care that Pepsi had issues. People wanted to drink water!

Week after week, we were getting less and less water delivered, and at some point, we stopped getting any. Then my manager shared with me that our GM was negotiating with Daniel’s winery which was producing wine in cans to help us with shortages. However, as Daniel’s was not traditionally a water bottler, the cost was going to be higher, so we might have to eventually pass it on as a price increase to our customers.

I was not enthusiastic about the idea that the already high water prices would go up even more. After work, I decided to do my own research. I was sure that the US market must have companies that produce water in cans, and it turned out it had. I found a company called Open Water located in Chicago, Illinois, just a few hours’ drive from us. Canned water was their main product, so they had sufficient production capacity and could deliver the required quantities within 3-5 business days, which was exactly what we needed. The main benefit of Open Water cans was that they were 50% cheaper so we could avoid the increase in the price to our customers.

The following day I happily introduced my findings to the GM. You might expect that this would’ve been the end of it - problem solved, and everyone lives happily ever after. But, I got turned down since the deal to produce 1400 hundred cases of water was already made, and the GM said that he couldn’t break his promise to Daniel’s. I was too late. Still, I didn’t lose faith and left the company contacts with him just in case.

A few weeks later, we were still facing very high demand, and neither Pepsi nor Daniel’s could satisfy it. We got into the same situation as before - no water deliveries and thousands of thirsty customers. Even with two suppliers, we were constantly running out of water.

At some point, I went to discuss something with my manager and ended up in the office during a management meeting. I took advantage of the situation and mentioned that Open Water from Chicago had enough water for us. Eventually, our executive chef supported me and GM decided to give it a shot. First, we ordered two pallets of water, 2160 cans each. Without a doubt, I can say that this company was our lifebuoy. After that, we started to make regular orders while Pepsi was recovering its production operations.

The new product saved us more than 14,000 dollars within the first few weeks and allowed us to serve water to more than 30,000 thirsty customers. After the summer, Pepsi managed to finally get us Aquafina cans since our demand went down, so now we are using them. Still, according to usnews.com, PepsiCo warns of another price increase as supply disruptions linger. It means that in 2022 Sodexo Live! and Indianapolis Zoo may end up without Aquafina cans again, but this time we are ready. This time we got this.