Set to make its debut in local stores in mid February, Sweet Carolina Water is a spring water company developed by Mountaineers in the High Country. 

Sweet Carolina Water takes a special interest in promoting an environmentally conscious community both on campus and beyond. Erich Shlenker, the managing director of the center for entrepreneurship at App State, said the water is sourced from Moonshine Spring in Hendersonville, and is a refreshing product delivered in a completely recyclable aluminum can. 

Eighteen months ago, the co-founders of Rare Stash Bourbon, Bob Wulf and App State alumn Ed Seckinger, approached Schlenker, with the idea and name for the project. Schlenker pitched it to his team of students at the Association of Student Entrepreneurs and they quickly set to work developing — and now producing — Sweet Carolina Water. 

The students of ASE were tasked with working through the entire entrepreneurial process, starting with only the idea. 

Sarah Zwaryczuk, a junior marketing major and the director of sales for Sweet Carolina Water, commented on the growth and development of the project. She said in the beginning there was a lot of “what if” and now there is more “we are.”

Schlenker said the journey has not been easy, as the young entrepreneurs have faced difficult decisions and challenges standing in the way of production. Gabriel Baerreis, a senior marketing major and operations manager of Sweet Carolina Water, expressed his difficulty with time management and collaboration.

“Everyone is a student and so they have their own personal lives, so it wasn’t really getting together at 5 o’clock on Wednesdays, but rather making sure everybody was kind of doing their own part and taking their piece of the pie when it came to their responsibility,” Baerreis said.

Kiera Murphy, a junior management major, is the facility operator for Sweet Carolina and shares a similar sentiment with Baerreis about the difficulty of working as a team. 

“I like to get stuff done and get stuff done quickly, so it’s hard to have to rely on other people, but the upside to that is learning to rely on other people and rely on a team,” Murphy said.

Balancing time commitments and team building, another major challenge in the early stages of Sweet Carolina Water was securing the water source. The original source was in Murphy, but due to legal matters it became inaccessible. The team collaborated with their community partners, Seckinger and Wulf, to locate the new source at Moonshine Spring — the only certified North Carolina spring water source.

With the source secured, the team now had to find a facility to pack the water. Originally, the plan was to work with a co-packer, but the cost was too high as it required creating upwards of 27 pallets instead of one. 

 “Now I realize that things cost a lot more than they seem. Seeing that we are working with our club budget and trying to make the money to be able to afford this was not something that I had really thought about in the past, and I kind of had to get humbled by some numbers to see that,” Zwaryczuk said. 

Max B. Smith, an App State alum of the Walker College of Business, went to a meeting and fell in love with the project and team behind it, offering ASE members to use his barn as their base of operations.

“I have this 2,100 square foot space that is virtually empty and they needed a location for warehousing, manufacturing, a place they could call their own,” Smith said.

In the following months, Smith worked on renovating his barn so the students would be able to package the water safely following FDA regulations. 

Despite these challenges, Murphy said they are inspired by the trials and what they have learned during their time as a part of the company’s development. 

“Being in this club has just been really encouraging and has given me a sense of what it feels like to be an entrepreneur and to build something from scratch,” Murphy said. 

Additionally, Smith expressed they are hopeful about Sweet Carolina Water’s effect within the community. 

“It is going to show the community that the students here, especially those in the college of business and the entrepreneurial program, can take on a project and make it come to reality and make a difference in the community,” Smith said. 

Baerreis expressed his excitement for how his teammates have grown and the expanding presence of Sweet Carolina Water in Boone. 

“What excites me the most is seeing everyone grow on the team and kind of watching this become a very real and proper start-up and getting our water into stores,” Baerreis said. 

At the time of publication, the first Sweet Carolina Water production run is set for Feb. 7, with sales starting soon after.