Sanders to cut ribbon Wednesday on Mountain Valley’s new bottling plant north of Hot Springs

HOT SPRINGS — Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will cut the ribbon Wednesday morning on The Mountain Valley’s new bottling plant on West Glazypeau Road, a roughly 200,000-square-foot factory that parent company Primo Brands calls its first new plant since the 2024 merger that created the company.

The ceremony is set for 11 a.m. at 111 West Glazypeau Road, according to a media advisory from the governor’s office. The event is open to the press, and the governor’s office said video of her remarks will be posted afterward.

The ribbon cutting comes a little under a year after Primo Brands broke ground on the site on Oct. 29, 2025, near Hot Springs Village, and several months later than the company first said the plant would be running.

In its groundbreaking announcement, Primo Brands described the factory as a “multi-million-dollar investment” with production, logistics and warehouse space and three new bottling lines, one for small-format bottles and two for large-format. The company has not said what the plant cost or how many people it will employ. The Sentinel-Record reported the new plant is expected to nearly double Mountain Valley’s output.

Primo said in October the factory would be “fully operational by spring 2026.” On the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in February, chief financial officer David Hass told analysts the facility “remains on track to open mid-year.” In May, chairman and CEO Eric Foss said the company expected to complete “the Mountain Valley new greenfield facility in mid-summer.”

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By the company’s August call, Foss said Primo had been “in the midst of starting up a new Mountain Valley line” during the quarter, which “did create a little bit of product supply disruption at one point.”

The plant is Primo’s answer to demand that has outrun the brand’s capacity. Mountain Valley and Saratoga, the company’s two premium water brands, grew combined net sales 43 percent in the first quarter of this year. Primo’s premium water segment brought in $114.2 million in the second quarter, up from $87.5 million a year earlier, according to the company’s quarterly results. Foss called the two brands “among the strongest growth assets in the portfolio.”

Sanders called Mountain Valley “a quintessential Arkansas brand” in the groundbreaking announcement and said she was proud the company was investing in the state. Clint O’Neal, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said “Hot Springs has the best water in the country” and called the expansion “a natural choice.” Garland County Judge Darryl Mahoney called the spring water “a proud part of Garland County’s heritage,” and Gary Troutman, president and CEO of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and Hot Springs Metro Partnership, said he was proud to see the company “continue investing in our community.”

Primo Brands CEO Robbert Rietbroek said at the time that the plant would “advance our ability to meet growing demand for the premium water brand with greater efficiency, speed and flexibility, while creating economic opportunities in the Hot Springs community.” Eight days later, the company announced Rietbroek was out and that Foss, a board member and former CEO of Aramark and Pepsi Bottling Group, had taken over as chairman and CEO effective immediately. The company did not give a reason for the change.

Kenny McBride, Mountain Valley’s director of manufacturing, said the company wanted to “strengthen our long-term commitment to the local community.”

Mountain Valley has been bottled continuously since 1871 from a spring about 12 miles north of downtown Hot Springs, just west of Arkansas 7, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to serve it at the White House, Dwight Eisenhower drank it on his doctor’s orders after his 1955 heart attack, and Elvis Presley and the racehorse Secretariat are among its better-known consumers. The company’s headquarters and visitor center have been in the brick building at 150 Central Ave. since 1936.

The brand changed hands repeatedly over the past four decades. Sammons Enterprises of Dallas bought it in 1987 and moved administration back to Hot Springs, Clear Mountain Spring Water of Little Rock bought it in 2004, and Cott Corp. paid $78.5 million for it in October 2018. Cott became Primo Water in 2020 and merged with BlueTriton Brands in November 2024 to form Primo Brands, the Tampa, Florida-based company that also owns Ozarka, Poland Spring, Deer Park, Arrowhead and Saratoga. In February 2023, Primo bought a second spring source next to the original Mountain Valley spring in Garland County to supply the brand’s growth.

Wednesday’s ceremony falls in the middle of the 35th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, which runs through Saturday and which Mountain Valley is sponsoring this year as its premiere sponsor.