For decades, bottled water has largely been defined by either pristine-sounding spring sources or heavily filtered municipal water, most of it packaged in plastic. Loonen, a newly launched California-based brand, is taking aim at that assumption by focusing less on where water comes from and more on what it touches along the way.
“We wanted to take the best of both worlds,” said Clara Sieg, co-founder of Loonen. “Starting with a really high-quality source, we spring source all of our water, and then marrying that with high-quality filtration, mineralization and bottling practices.”
That philosophy has led the company to rebuild its supply chain around two core principles: minimizing plastic contact throughout the process and applying filtration to spring-sourced water.
Designing plastic out of the process
Sieg’s focus on materials extends far beyond the bottle itself. At Loonen’s manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, Calif., water is transported and handled using stainless steel infrastructure wherever possible.
“We stainless steel tanker our water to our manufacturing facility. We use stainless steel piping to pipe the water in,” she said. “We then do physical membrane filtration, so no chemical filtration on the water.”
The company also mineralizes its water using lab-tested ingredients. “We use lab tested minerals of the highest quality,” Sieg said. “For example, we use Celtic Sea salt, not refined table salt.”
Testing is conducted on finished goods, not just source water. “Once a bottle has been fully bottled, all the water’s in it, et cetera, we ship it off to the testing facility,” she said. “And they do their magic.”
Loonen tests for a wide range of contaminants, including microplastics, phthalates, bisphenols, PFAs, heavy metals and pesticides, Sieg said.
Why glass – and why it’s complicated
Packaging choices are central to Loonen’s strategy. The brand bottles its 750 mL still and sparkling waters exclusively in glass, a decision Sieg describes as both deliberate and difficult.
“By the way,” she added, “glass breaks.”
Still, the company sees glass as critical in a category with a uniquely long and exposed supply chain.
Sieg explained that water’s long shelf life and exposure to heat and light create ideal conditions for plastic degradation and chemical leaching, making packaging choice especially important compared to cold-chain foods.
Even details like caps have been scrutinized, especially painted caps using epoxy that can chip into the water, Sieg noted.
As a result, Loonen uses uncoated aluminum caps. “We use unpainted caps,” she said. “We also wash and sanitize our caps – what we call a ‘cap car wash’ – twice before application.”
The caps include a liner to meet FDA requirements, but Sieg emphasized the quality of the materials used. “They’re verified non-detect for PFAs and BPA,” she said.
Currently, Loonen is available in natural and local retailers in the Bay Area and on Amazon. The brand plans to launch in the Los Angeles area this year, according to Sieg.
Rethinking ‘processed’ water
In bottled water, filtration has traditionally been associated with municipally-sourced purified water, while spring and mineral waters are often marketed as untouched by processing. Sieg sees limitations in both models.
Municipal water may include natural minerals and added chemicals like chlorine to disinfect or fluoride to promote dental health. Yet, natural resources are not without challenges, including drought, pollution and inadequate infrastructure for treatment, among others.
Loonen’s approach combines spring sourcing with filtration and mineralization – a process Sieg says delivers consistency and transparency. “That marriage provides us with a really uniquely clean and consistent product,” she said.
The company sources its water from the Palomar Mountains outside San Diego, with manufacturing in Los Angeles. Sustainability is monitored through testing rather than fixed allegiance to a single source.
“We do source testing,” Sieg said. “And that’s part of the reason why having a flexible supply chain and not being wed to one source is actually really important.”
‘Water isn’t just water anymore’
Sieg believes bottled water is entering a period of reassessment similar to the rise of organic food in the 1990s.
“I think the same thing is going to happen with the plastics issue,” she said. “It’s really a big issue, and we think providing transparency around testing of what’s actually in our product and doing it in the best form factor we can from preserving that purity is important for the category.”
Water, she added, has long been treated as interchangeable. “It’s been a forgotten category in some ways,” Sieg said. “It’s just long been assumed, like water is water. And the more we learn about sort of the contamination that’s happened in the world, water isn’t just water anymore.”
