Belu, the bottled water company that operates on a promise that all profits go to clean water projects, made a loss of more than £600,000 in 2007, newly-published accounts reveal.
The accounts for the year ended 30 September 2007, published last week, show a pre-tax loss for the year of £627,254. Belu, which began trading in 2004 and supplies D&D London and Tragus, had overall losses totalling £1.5m as of September 2007.
However, the company said it was meeting its commitment to water projects via "trading profit", which it defines as profit from sales once manufacturing and distribution costs are stripped out.
The accounts state that "the company has a deficiency of net assets and is dependent on financial support for the continuation of its operations". This financial support is shown as loans of almost £1.2m. It is not known who the financial benefactors are but Belu does count environmentalist Ben Goldsmith among its backers.
A spokesman for Belu insisted that the company was now increasingly profitable and that accounts for the year to September 2008, currently unaudited and yet to be published, would record the company's first yearly profit. He attributed this to an expected increase in turnover for 2008 to £2.25m, compared with £1.5m in 2007, and a reduction in overheads from £693,824 in 2007 to £530,000.
Belu has so far supported four clean water projects - in India, Mali, Madagascar and Bangladesh - where wells and hand pumps provide water for more than 40,000 people. It is also supporting a dam rebuilding project in Rajasthan, India.
Belu has, to date, supported these projects and other environmental work from trading profit. This includes £450,000 in developing compostable biobottles and £80,000 on clean-water projects.
The spokesman said the "All profits to clean water projects" tagline on the front of Belu's bottles was a guarantee to those buying the product that "no money was being creamed off" by the directors, and added that its "every bottle you buy provides clean water for one person for one month" pledge had been met with existing projects.
Belu, which last November conceded its claims to be "helping clean the Thames" with a rubbish muncher were exaggerated, hopes to launch a unit on the Thames this April, the spokesman said.
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By Chris Druce
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