Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star

Other articles by Shelley Shelton:

A room where every day is Christmas Day End of NW Side road work hailed Thornydale has a new look Community notes Council freezes hiring, mulls plan amendments Holiday starts early for the less-fortunate Librarian gets her own spot on shelf Oro Valley adopts hiring freeze despite misgivings of some Marana aims to get ahead of the game Community notes

Health Care
Rio Salado College
PA's/Online Instructors General
CORT
Warehouse Supervisor Construction
Komatsu Equipment Co
Mechanic General
CORT
WAREHOUSE/DRIVER Education
Assessment Technology, Inc
Social Studies Content Writer

Sliced bread. The oven mitt. Crushed ice. Now add another product to the list of things you could have invented before someone else, but didn't: frozen bottled water.

It's a concept so obvious, it might first seem like a joke when you hear it: Fria Frozen Water is exactly what it sounds like — bottled ice that Tucsonans can buy and keep with them throughout the day to drink as it melts.

You might have a homemade version in your freezer already, and if you don't, there's a good chance you have a friend or co-worker drinking a homemade version while you read this.

Jon Wilt — yes, that's his real name — decided to market the idea just about a year ago while he was driving around in Tucson's summer heat after working on some rental properties he owns near the University of Arizona.

It was Aug. 24, to be exact, when he scrawled, "A frozen gallon of water" across three days in his day planner, as he drove.

"It must have been hot that day," he said, chuckling.

Fria Beverage Co. was born.

Now, Wilt's flagship product, Fria Frozen Water, can be found in most Catalina Marts and Coxco convenience stores, and at most Tucson-area Chevron stations.

"It's something that a lot of people already do," Wilt conceded. "And therefore, a lot of people already know the value of the product."

After months of research, he settled on bottle designs in 1-, 2- and 3-liter sizes, each filled with quarts of water, a quantity slightly smaller than liters, to let the water expand when frozen. And he added a little handle to the lid, making the bottles easy to carry and keeping people from freezing their hands.

"It's the only bottle of water that you can carry with one finger," he said.

Then Wilt met with three different groups of 10 moms to sample water from various bottlers before settling on Tucson-based Aquapure Hydration Cos., which uses municipal water and runs it through a series of filters before bottling the water and sending it out to two frozen-goods warehouses.

Most importantly, Wilt said, the moms liked Aquapure's water, which is frozen at 11 degrees below zero to become Fria.

Fria hit the retail market In July and is gradually building a following. The smallest bottles sell for $1.89, the medium for $2.39 and the large for $2.89.

"We looked at it with our store managers and also our executive management, and everybody said, 'Wow, how come we haven't done this before?' " said Bob Mahlstede, president of the Catalina Mart convenience chain, which stocks Fria in 12 of its 18 stores.

He noted that freezing your own bottle of water is something that requires planning ahead.

"That was the a-ha thing, was our convenience customers don't plan ahead," Mahlstede said.

Several Catalina Mart locations had underutilized freezer space, so he agreed that Wilt could fill it.

In one of those locations Wednesday morning — at Interstate 19 and West Irvington Road — customer Clint Moore, 30, said he was skeptical about the concept.

"If it works, it's a good idea. Usually when I'm thirsty, I'm going to drink a whole bottle" without waiting for the water to melt, he said. He added that he didn't see why he couldn't just freeze water himself.

But at a nearby construction site, painter Steve Breeze, 41, said he's bought three bottles over the course of the past week and finds it's a good value for the money.

"It was already frozen. I didn't have to wait for it at the house," he said.

At Coxco Corp., general manager Scott Bronson said sales have been strong in the two stores where Coxco carries Fria. The product will be added to Coxco's third store soon, he said.

The Coxco management was impressed by Wilt's work ethic, intelligence and entrepreneurial spirit, he said.

"We want to carry as much as we can locally to support the local economy and local businesspeople," Bronson said.

For his part, Wilt said he's just beginning. He knows the winter will slow sales of frozen beverages, so he already is planning on a bottled-water line to complement those sales.

By then, people will be more familiar with the brand and, he hopes, will prefer to drink it for its taste.

Meanwhile, his days are spent meeting with various companies to find new ways to get the frozen water into the hands of the public.

"It's all in the works," Wilt said. "Everyone we've approached about selling the product has agreed to take it on."