INDEPENDENT Irish bottled water company Celtic Pure has secured a deal with one of the largest food distribution companies in Britain.

Celtic founder Pádraig McEnaney met distributors from the numerically named distributor 3663, part of the Bidvest Group, at a food exhibition in London in 2011 and has spent the last year negotiating the listing, which is worth about €2 million to his company over three years.

3663 has more than 60,000 customers in the UK.

Sales at Celtic Pure are up 20 per cent this year on the back of strong exports. The Irish market for water is contracting and McEnaney says the company’s export focus has been key in achieving growth that will generate sales of more than €4 million this year.

Celtic Pure is based in Monaghan and employs 40 people. The company expects to sell an estimated 35,000 million bottles of water in 2012, but McEnaney says the weather and the strength of customer sentiment could affect this.