Fria Ice Water

Product Type:Water: Still; Container: 2 quart PET
BevNET Review: Designed to be “ice and bottled water” in one, Fria Water is designed to be sold frozen. This allows the product to help cool other things down (e.g. a cooler) while providing chilled water throughout the day as it melts. While that’s an interesting concept – and probably one that is convenient at times – it seems like a very niche focus. Essentially, the product is a slightly less full bottle of water that, as a result, doesn’t expand the bottle when frozen. When it melts, the product drinks like any other PET bottled water, which is to say that it has a plastic-y finish. In the case of Fria’s packaging, they could definitely do more. Right now, it seems like it’s trying to visually compete with bagged ice rather than bottled water. That’s going to be an issue once it’s time to drink the water – this bottle doesn’t look overly appealing in your hand. If they could figure out a way to make it look hip, rather than utilitarian as it is now, they might have something interesting. Overall, it’s a mildly innovative concept, but we think that the niche for this type of product is probably too small.Reviewed on: 2/17/2011