A Little Taste Of Paradise… Overseas

Vanuatu’s own Azure Pure Water yesterday was joined by tourism and trade officials in celebrating a milestone in the development of Vanuatu’s exports in goods.
The company beat out Fiji Water and secured a supply contract for Crystal Cruises, a cruise ship company headquartered in Los Angeles, USA.
This is the first time a company has exported bottled water from Vanuatu.
The contract is with Pegasus Supply Solutions, a Sydney based supply and logistics company who provide Duty Free and Product Supply to all major Cruise Lines and Airlines in Australia. It is for the supply of Crystal Cruise liners operating in the south Pacific.
Acting Director General George Borugu joined the staff and management of Azure Pure Water to ceremonially put the seal on 40-foot container holding a 25-tonne shipment of nearly 20,000 1.5l and 600ml bottles of Vanuatu Natural water.
Acting tourism director Donald Pelam was also on-site to mark the occasion. He was singled out for a heartfelt word of thanks by Azure co-owner Shaun Gilchrist a few moments before the container was closed and sealed.
Mr Pelam was Vanuatu’s Trade Commissioner to Australia in the early stages of the deal. Mr Gilchrist was fulsome in his assessment of the role Pelam played in it. “We couldn’t have done it without you,” he said to Mr Pelam.
Co-owner Yael Sakker also credited Pacific Trade and Invest, an agency of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat that focuses on trade and tourism promotion for Pacific island countries.
The deal was notable because it is one of the first times that Vanuatu’s brands have successfully competed toe to toe with global brands such as Fiji water, who also bid on the Crystal Cruise lines tender.
Closing the container proved a little more strenuous than planned, but a regimen of good living and exercise paid off for Shaun Gilchrist, who put his back into it and helped push the container doors snugly into place. George Borugu quite literally sealed the deal, setting the plastic security peg into place and making it ready for transport overseas.
The container will depart the newly-opened Lapetasi container wharf on Saturday.
Crystal Cruises operates up-market cruises across the world, from the Arctic to the South Pacific.
 
 
(Source: The Vanuatu Daily Post 24 November 2017)