The truth about building a challenger water brand with Cano Water

In this episode, we welcome Josh White, co-founder of Cano Water, to uncover the story behind building one of the UK’s most distinctive challenger water brands. Eleven years ago, Josh and his two closest friends were, in his own words, three “dysfunctional” twenty-somethings with no real sense of direction — until a trip to Thailand confronted them with the scale of the plastic problem, and a strange statistic changed everything: 70% of all aluminium ever produced is still in circulation today. A plastic bottle will never become another plastic bottle. A can, recycled, can become a new can within 60 days. From that single fact, Cano was born — canned water, built by three people obsessed with brands and culture rather than sustainability credentials.

Josh sits down with host Emma Bartholomew to talk about what it actually took to build a challenger brand in one of the hardest categories imaginable. Water has no flavour, no obvious point of difference, and a giant, entrenched incumbent in the form of the tap. Josh describes the early days — being laughed at outright at a Taste of London stand, spending eight months just getting people to take a sip — and the wild swings since: the “David Attenborough effect” after Blue Planet sent sales from a few hundred thousand cans to 10 million in a year, followed almost immediately by the gut-punch of Covid.

The conversation goes deep on the tension every founder eventually hits — how to keep a brand “cool” without losing the plot, why chasing competitors is a trap, and why Josh believes the instinct and taste of the people who built a brand can’t be replicated by a spreadsheet or an AI tool. He’s blunt about the parts that still don’t get easier: educating consumers, fighting for shelf space next to a sea of plastic, and resisting the urge to launch a new flavour just because the market’s watching.

It’s also, true to the format, laced with the show’s signature Two Truths and a Lie — including a lunch with DJ Khaled, a lift stuck with a Premier League footballer, and a son named after the brand that started it all.

• PODCAST LENGTH: 42 MIN
• BRAND: Cano Water
• GUEST: Josh White