KOPU the Kiwi to Their Hearts

With Starbucks and American Airlines ditching the use of plastic straws with a view to cleaning up the environment, Santa Barbara dynamic duo Justin and Mindy Mahy couldn’t have chosen a better time to launch KOPU sparkling water, sourced from Justin’s native New Zealand.

And rather than the product coming in a plastic bottle, like so many commercial waters, their brand comes in a sleek and lightweight aluminum bottle.

“Aluminum is a sustainability warrior,” says Mindy. “Recycling just one of our bottles is equivalent to the recycling of 400 plastic bottles, 50 glass.

“Some seventy-five percent of all aluminum ever created is still in use today, given the metal can be recycled endlessly without losing its integrity.”

Aluminum is also valuable, with a ton of its scrap metal yielding around $2,100 with plastic at just $6.

“To address carbon emissions, the KOPU vessel weighs about eighty percent less than equivalent-sized glass bottles,” adds Mindy.

The tony twosome, who met in New York, spent more than two years creating what they believe to be the perfect sparkling water, which is bottled at source in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty, Justin’s hometown.

The innovative brand has also been awarded the top three best-tasting sparkling waters in the world at the Berkeley Springs international water tasting awards this year in its first entry.

It is distributed from Santa Barbara to San Diego – selling at the Montage in Beverly Hills, the prestigious Jonathan Club, and the Canary – and, most recently, in New York and the oh-so trendy Hamptons, including the exclusive East Hampton Golf Club.

In our rarefied enclave, it can be bought at the Montecito Village Grocers, Los Arroyos, and Jeannine’s.

Stylishly quenching your thirst while saving the planet. 

Perfect.