
Richard's Rainwater was founded in Austin in the 1990s. With new investors, the company is hoping to expand its reach. Photo courtesy of Facebook.
Jan. 24, 2025
In 2023, Americans consumed almost 16 billion gallons of bottled water, according to the International Bottled Water Association. Almost all of that water was harvested from underground aquifers, either by municipalities or private companies. One Texas company is an outlier in the bottled water scene, betting on rainwater as the answer to the nation’s ever-shrinking, evermore contaminated water supplies.
Richard’s Rainwater harvested enough of nature’s bounty straight from the sky over southern Mississippi to distribute 2 million fully recyclable bottles and cans of drinking water in 2,500 retail outlets across the country in 2023. In addition to selling its still and sparkling waters in Whole Foods and other natural grocery stores, the company also partners with restaurants, bars and hotels in Central Texas that have been fans of Richard’s Rainwater for decades.
DOWN TO EARTH BEGINNINGS
Richard’s Rainwater was founded in Austin in the 1990s by Richard Heinichen, “a hippie made good” who simply wanted to take a bath in a tub full of rainwater, said Vic Staffa, the minister of culture at Richard’s Rainwater. A jack of all trades, Heinichen rigged up a rain catchment system on his roof and ran the filtered rainwater through the plumbing of his home into his kitchen and bathrooms.
Richard Heinichen, founder of Richard's Rainwater, shows off his rainwater collection system in Dripping Springs. Archive image. Courtesy of Richard's Rainwater.
Compared to the hard, mineral-rich water of the Texas Hill Country, the soft rainwater was a revelation, rinsing clear and drying spot-free, said Staffa. Before long, all of Heinichen’s friends wanted a system installed at their own houses and Richard’s Rainwater was born.
Over time Heinichen amassed 34 certificates related to the capture and purification of rainwater, and he became an advocate for changing rainwater consumption laws around the country. In 2002, Richard’s Rainwater became the first company in the nation with a license to bottle and distribute rainwater for drinking. Last year, the company was acquired by a private equity firm in Fort Worth, led by principals Todd Fitzgerald and JW Wilson with the hopes of expanding the brand’s reach.
In 2002, Richard’s Rainwater became the first company in the nation with a license to bottle and distribute rainwater for drinking. Last year, the company was acquired by a private equity firm in Fort Worth, led by principals Todd Fitzgerald and JW Wilson with the hopes of expanding the brand’s reach.
PURE AND SIMPLE
When it comes to water sources, nothing is more pure and sustainable than rainwater, said John Pritchett, CEO of Richard’s Rainwater.
“What makes it pure to begin with is it's never come into contact with the earth's surface,” he said.
Groundwater is in contact with naturally occurring minerals and human-created contaminants, all of which impact the purity and taste of our drinking water no matter how much it is filtered. This is why rainwater is the only type of water that does not contain “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, Pritchett said.
However, that may be changing. A 2022 study published in Environmental Science & Technology said researchers found PFAs in rainwater around the world.
CAPTURING NATURE'S CLEANER
A rainwater collection site in Dripping Springs. Courtesy of Richard's Rainwater.
Richard’s Rainwater partners with the Lazy Magnolia Brewery in Kiln, Mississippi, for capture, filtration and bottling of all its rainwater. With only an inch of rain fall, they can collect 30,000 gallons of rainwater on the roof of the brewery. It rains often enough in southern Mississippi that they’ve never had an issue of going dry, said Pritchett. If demand for the product ever exceeds the catchment area of the brewery roof, they can easily expand operations.
Rain is the natural cleaner of our atmosphere, washing contaminants from the air. Richard’s Rainwater uses a proprietary, automated system to calculate when to start collecting the rainwater after it has done its cleaning work. Once the rain is collected it moves through a closed-loop process that includes UV lights and ozone to complete the purification. This process results in virtually no water waste, unlike traditional reverse osmosis used in purifying groundwater, which discards 30 percent of the water as wastewater.
“Cleaning [rainwater] is easy because it's not dirty in the first place,” said Staffa. “If you just catch it out of the sky, you don't have to burn all that energy to do all that filtration, and you don't deplete the ground source.”
BRAND VS. SOURCE
Traditional bottled water is either a “brand” or a “source” product, said Pritchett. Brand products are municipal water that has been filtered and packaged under a brand label. Source products come from specific sources of groundwater that are popularly known to have certain qualities of purity, such as Fiji, or flavor, such as Topo Chico, which gets its distinct flavor from the high mineral content of its source. Richard’s Rainwater is an interesting combination of brand and source, said Pritchett.
A video explains the process of rainwater collection. Courtesy of Richard's Rainwater.
“The rain is everywhere, but we've gone through the the pain to figure out the process of collecting it and harvesting it and filtering it and bringing it to you,” Pritchett said. “We're the largest brand that's doing that. We're way ahead of that market, and we feel like there's tremendous opportunity there.”
TASTE TEST
The taste of pure rainwater is hard to describe, Pritchett said, but he thinks it tastes the way fresh rain smells. Staffa describes it as “soft, pure, sweet rainwater” that doesn’t have any of the mineral taste that we’ve grown accustomed to with groundwater. Matthew McConaughey is such a fan, he likes to stock his Airstream trailer with cases of Richard’s Rainwater when he goes on film sets so he always has pure rainwater for drinking, Staffa said.
Taste and purity are the main reasons high-end bars and restaurants in the Austin area insist on using Richard’s Rainwater as the mixer in their cocktails, Pritchett said. Staffa recommends using Richard’s Rainwater to make coffee, mix baby formula, cook pasta or even as a final rinse in the shower because it washes off the mineral deposits from the hard water.
SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION
As our consumption of water increases with population growth and an increasing appetite for bottled water, the nation’s aquifers will continue to deplete and become more contaminated, said Staffa.
“When you suck it out of the ground every year, that aquifer is getting harder to recharge because there's more and more straws in the ground. And the quality of it diminishes as every year goes by because less concentration of water means more concentration of contaminants,” said Staffa. “It's a no brainer.”
If every rooftop in every city in the world was equipped to collect rainwater, water would no longer be a limited resource and the natural aquifers of the world wold have time to rest and revive, said Staffa.
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