Seawater from the depths of the Mediterranean is going to be desalinated for drinking – a process generally used when sources of water for drinking or irrigation are scarce – and marketed as a healthy drink in Europe, Japan and China.
Ocean Fresh Water, based in the Riviera resort of Hyères, plans to produce some 750,000 bottles of 'Ôdeep' per week, starting in February. It is said to contain 78 'marine minerals,' including magnesium, and could be the next big health craze.
However, mineral waters are currently derived mainly from underground sources or springs, and fossil fuel use, greenhouse gas emissions and briny wastewater generated by desalination plants can pose environmental problems.  
Yet seas are expected to become increasingly important sources of freshwater in the future.
There are already about 18,000 desalination plants producing potable water in operation globally, with around half of all desalted water being produced in the Middle East and North Africa. The United States is also a major producer, with most plants in Florida, Texas and California.
In the case of Ocean Fresh Water, the water will be pumped from 300 metres below the surface on to a huge ship, the Odeep One, once used as a ferry transporting trains across the icy waters between Saint-Petersburg and Kaliningrad in the former Soviet Union. It will be desalinated and bottled on board the 160-metre-long vessel, using technology which the company claims will preserve its nutrients. The company says investors are pumping some 50 million euros into the project.
'Drinking seawater is not a habit,' the company acknowledges, but claims it has health-enhancing properties.
The best-known ingredient is magnesium, a mineral that the NHS says helps the body convert food into energy and aids the functioning of the parathyroid glands, which produce hormones important for bone health.
According to the NHS, however, most people should be able to get all the magnesium they need from their daily diet.  
Régis Revilliod, the head of the company and a former captain in the French merchant marine, claims the water 'tones the body'.  
The Odeep One will spend six months in the Mediterranean and will then sail to Asia where it will start pumping up water off the coast of the Philippines for the Asian market.  
The production system has already been piloted off the south of France on a small laboratory boat. Some bottles of Ôdeep are already on sale in France in luxury stores and available online for €2.25 (£1.92) a bottle.
Ocean Fresh Water says seawater offers "a sustainable and eco-rational alternative, a global relay against the degradation and depletion of terrestrial waters… [which are] becoming increasingly scarce and polluted
