H2O with Heart

Stefano Iorini, Managing Partner at Monviso Trading discusses his passion for his brand, giving back to the community and saving the planet

Stefano Iorini’s main business is a fresh fruit supplier to the Middle East, which had its fair share of challenges. When one of his fruit suppliers invested in a water bottling factory in Italy and asked him to introduce the water brand to the Middle East, he wondered how hard it could be. As it turned out, quite a bit.

The worldwide market is controlled by very few, large corporations and for a while, Iorini wasn’t sure what he was going to do to break into the market. MonViso water is premium and very light, coming from the highest spring in Europe, making it pure and with a low mineral content.

“I knew that it would be difficult to compete with the multinationals, so we started promoting our water at events, particularly sporting events. My focus is on sports and art. We’ve done quite a lot of events over the years. The most important was made, I think in 2019 we were the sponsor for the 3030 in Indonesia initiative in October. We sponsored the Dubai Film Festival for the last two years, placing our bottles on the seats. We tried to be different through our marketing and with a limited budget, and the full team worked weekends and evenings at the events,” said Iorini.

Iorini and his team have worked steadily and now partner with initiatives where, for every litre sold, they pledge AED 1 to the Al Jalila Foundation, and were at around AED 1.2 million at the time of this interview. “We don’t feel like we are selling water; we feel like we are selling a brand and the heart of our brand is recycling. We collect the empty bottles from homes and restaurants and we send the glass to a company in Jebel Ali that crushes it and sells it as raw material for glass manufacturers. The plastic is given to a company that makes textile fibres. My dream is to keep the brand growing with this initiative,” he said.

POST PANDEMIC
Despite many areas of life returning to normal after COVID, inflation and the corresponding cost hike are still real problems. Previously, agreements were in place with fixed pricing but a recent phone call from his supplier in Italy left Iorini shocked. Their order couldn’t be processed unless they agreed to a 13-15 per cent increase. All the costs have skyrocketed, from electricity to shipping, and he can only hope that his customers will be sympathetic to this problem, which affects everyone.

MonViso is Iorini’s passion, and he strongly believes that every brand should give back to its community. “I see more and more that consumers are engaging with brands with values and less with the products, particularly since so many products are available. Of course, we hope to increase sales. What we’d really like to see is an increase in the number of people that recycle our plastic and glass and help our contribution to medical research and the planet,” he said.

He’d also like to combine his passion for his brand with his love of art, collaborating with different artists from around the UAE to create bottle labels, all he needs is the right connection with the right people.

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