About Us

Our Story

The WCD Group was founded in 2003 following a research trip by our CEO to Australia to research plumbed in hydration solutions. At this time this was something unknown to the UK and Europe, however, he passionately believed that the future was refilling.

From the humble beginnings of a “one-man-band” in a loft conversion to a thriving business with over 50 full-time employees. Together our team is helping eradicate single-use plastic within businesses across the UK and Europe

Our Mission

Our mission is to deliver innovative hydration solutions with sustainable, green credentials for refill, minimising plastics and waste, that help businesses and homeowners provide their teams and families with hot and cold, chilled, filtered, and sparkling water, to stay hydrated, healthy and enjoy wellbeing.

We have an established engineering and service division across the UK that also takes care of installations and maintenance, including a growing number of hot water heating boiler services and repairs.

Our Journey

The WCD Group is an award-winning, UK-leading drinking water solutions company working with the industry’s biggest equipment manufacturers and supplying some of the largest blue-chip companies in the UK with hot and cold drinking water coolers, boilers, and instant boiling taps. We also provide boiling taps and hydration to homes, a growing market with many people now working from the home office and taking on refurb projects.

Our hydration brands include watercoolersdirect.com, waterboilersdirect.com, and kettletaps.com.
Since our foundation in a loft in Dursley in 2004, we have continued to innovate, be flexible and implement a friendly, consultative approach. As the UKs largest independent supplier, we are proud to be the first company to swap ‘plastic for plumbed in’ resources.

We place the environment and sustainability at the heart of our hydration business with refill and reuse, even more important in today’s unprecedented times. To that end hands-free contactless water machines are proving very popular to help with hygiene and stop the spread of bacteria and germs, keeping your teams safe back at work.

Backed by a nationwide team of skilled and fully qualified service engineers, we offer a first-class installation and service facility for all products that we sell and as servicing and repairs for equipment from our manufacturers that has fallen out of warranty. We offer a range of service plans to meet your needs.

We are extremely active in the Facilities Management sector with many successful FM partnerships delivering hydration advice, hot and cold equipment and service contracts to estate managers who take care of both private and public facilities at manufacturing and industrial buildings, offices, retail centres and sporting facilities, hospitals, hotels, arenas and many more.

Our ethos is to be the UK leading supplier of ‘everything hydration where you want it’ so that consumers can buy sustainable hot, cold, and sparkling drinking equipment that saves single-use plastic pollution and conserves energy and water, with the health of our customers and the planet in mind.

Our History

  • 2004WaterCoolersDirect was founded in a loft, in the rural location of Dursley. The vision to sell water coolers through an e-commerce platform, rather than offering long term rentals.

  • 2005Moved to a larger premise at Innsworth Tech Park, with turnover exceeding £185,000.

  • 2008Moved again to a new HQ in Gloucester Business Park. Established an exclusive distributorship deal with Winix, leading to the successful setup of the trade arm of the business.

  • 2009Turnover reached £1.8 million. Business guru Rene Carayol endorsed the business.

  • 2010Small business of the year award (Gloucester Business Awards). Initial blue chip client came on board in Barclays.

  • 2011Continued expansion of blue chip client base, which included the likes of Sky, Hobbycraft, CBRE, ISS, Tag Heuer.

  • 2014Expanding product portfolio with boiling taps including Heatrae Aquatap. Working alongside England Rugby star Phil Vickery to market the product.

  • 2015First national engineers conference held. Continued expansion into the boiling hydration market, increasing service contracts on ZIP & Heatrae to in excess of £1million.

  • 2018Intrix partnership and KettleTap launched. Offering a boiling tap to the UK market at a very competitive price point.

  • 2019Improved awareness of the effect of single-use plastic resulting in increased demand for plumbed-in coolers and water fountains.

  • 202150+ staff across the business, re-branding to The WCD Group. Continuing to focus on sustainability and bring new, innovative products to market including a range of contactless solutions.