BUTTE — A Montana family-owned company that produces Pepsi products and bottled water just won a prestigious national award for food quality and safety.
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Founded in 1937, Harrington Bottling Company, based in Butte, has been producing beverages for nearly 90 years. Recently, the company was chosen over 117 other companies across the country for a food quality and safety award from Pepsi.
Chris Reed, chief operations officer for Harrington Bottling, has been with the company for 22 years.
"We've been here for almost 90 years. We're gonna be here for another 90, and we're probably gonna be here for another 90 after that," Reed said.
Reed says the soft drinks and bottled water products created in Butte are exceptional for several reasons, starting with the water itself.
"The water is so pure that when Pepsi Co. comes in, we get awards just for the water. A lot of beverage facilities across the United States are built on municipality water... city water. We're not like that," Reed said.
Harrington Bottling Company's water comes from an aquifer located beneath the facility about 800 feet below the earth's surface. The water is considered artesian, taken from the deepest and coldest part of the aquifer.
Production manager John Garrett has worked for the company for 25 years. He is proud of the Butte water products, which are sourced from an aquifer that is replenished by snow from the Highland Mountains south of town.
"There's a lot of rumors that go on about water...that basically we're just filling it up out of a hose, putting it in a bottle. That is not what happens," Garrett said.
Pristine water is not the only special ingredient. Mike Vook, the food safety manager who has been with the company for 17 years, says the concentrate used to make Pepsi products comes from Cork, Ireland, is shipped to Grand Prairie, Texas, and then trucked to Butte.
Vook says rigorous standards go into making a single bottle of Pepsi, including hourly water testing and syrup testing before it is even bottled. Special attention is also paid to testing diet products.
"We produce starting from scratch. So, we test our water starting out, and then we test it hourly," Vook said.
Vook says the award reflects the team effort and pride that goes into every product made at the Butte facility.
"It starts out with all of the testing and the quality of our water, and the coolest thing about winning that award is it means we put a lot of pride in the product we make. I mean, everyone is a team," Vook said.
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