715048452 - The Provision of BATUK Bottled Drinking Water

BATUK Drinking Water – UK2 Preliminary Market Engagement

The purpose of this Preliminary Market Engagement Notice (PMEN) is to notify the market of an upcoming tender for bottled drinking water within British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) .

Please note the following general conditions:

• This PMEN will help us to refine the requirement and conduct market research.
• We reserve the right not to proceed with this procurement. Nothing shall constitute a commitment to instigating a formal procurement process.
• Any and all costs associated with the production of such a response either to the PMEN or any resultant competition must be borne by the Supplier. The Authority will not contribute in any way to meeting production costs of any response.
• Information contained within this document is confidential and must not be revealed to any third party without prior written consent from us.
• No down-selection of Potential Providers will take place as a consequence of any responses or interactions relating to this PMEN.
• We expect that all responses to this PMEN will be provided by Potential Providers in good faith to the best of their ability in the light of information available at the time of their response.
• No information provided by a Potential Provider in response to this PMEN will be carried forward, used or acknowledged in any way for the purpose of evaluating the Potential Provider, in any subsequent formal procurement process that may take place.
• Should a Potential Provider fail to respond to this Supplier Questionnaire, it will not affect any further participation in any possible future procurement for this capability.

OUR AIMS – WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE

• Provide Industry with a greater understanding of the requirement allowing reduced timescales for tender returns. Potentially reducing the number of clarification questions meaning reduced timescales for procurements.
• Have a higher chance of creating a competitive tendering environment and ensuring a higher level of response to your resultant procurement.
• Understand Industry’s viewpoints on significant risks and reducing the need for future amendments and associated costs.
• Determine the most appropriate tender evaluation criteria and terms and conditions.

REQUIREMENT INFORMATION

Once all documentation is finalised, the Authority expect this requirement to be acquired through a competitive procurement run under the Procurement Act 2023.

The contract is valued at £785,947.24 over a term of 5 years.

Anticipated Contract Start Date – 01st January 2026

The requirement will require a Kenyan registered company to deliver it.

There are regulations in place to ensure that the drinking water is safe for human consumption and suppliers will be subject to regular testing throughout the life of the contract. To ensure they meet the conditions of participation, suppliers will need to have achieved the ‘Diamond’ standard through the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) as well as having a Schedule of Accreditation from the local testing unit from Crop Nutrition Laboratory Services Limited (Cropnut).

Suppliers interested in participating in this competition will need to actively seek out and achieve accreditation from Cropnut as part of the Conditions of Participation for the tender.

The chemical and biological parameters are set out in a bespoke test by Cropnut, which emulate the testing conducted by the Institute of Naval Medicine. It is strongly advised that you contact the Authority prior to booking an appointment with Cropnut to ensure the correct testing is completed. Further to this, MOD reserves the right and has no obligation to continue with the requirement following this PMEN, therefore any actions taken by suppliers as a result is entirely at their own risk.

The requirement is the supply and delivery of bottled drinking water and suitable drinking water dispensers, to BATUK locations in Kifaru Barracks, Nairobi and Nyati Barracks, Nanyuki on behalf of BATUK and DIO. The total requirement over one year is estimated at 48,000 x 18.9Ltr bottles. (Average use of 4000 bottles per month) and a requirement of 300 water dispensers.

The contract must also include routine maintenance, repair and replacements if the bottles or water dispenser were to become unserviceable.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

1. Where possible, are you able to provide a submission of a rough order of magnitude in regard to how much it would cost to fulfil this requirement in full, for 5 years.
2. Do any potential providers have the current capacity to deliver the capabilities? If a potential provider has a solution or is willing to develop a solution that fulfils the requirement, please provide a summary of the solution.
3. Are there any major pit falls, issues or risks with the requirement?
4. What are the most applicable social value missions and outcomes that be achieved in fulfilment of the requirement? (Please see assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67ae1529e270ce… ↗)
5. Are there any outcomes that provide tenderers the best opportunity to deliver greater benefit to social, economic and the environment missions and outcomes through the performance of the potential contract than other outcomes listed in the above link?

POTENTIAL PROVIDER QUESTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

• To ensure that all Potential Providers have equal access to information regarding this Procurement, responses to questions raised by Potential Providers will be published in a questions and answers document, which will be available through the Defence Sourcing Portal (DSP) .
• Responses to questions will not identify the originator of the question.
• If a Potential Provider wishes to ask a question or seek clarification without the question and answer being published in this way, then the Potential Provider must notify us and provide its justification for withholding the question and any response. If the Authority does not consider that there is sufficient justification for withholding the question and the corresponding response, the Potential Provider will be invited to decide whether:

o the question/clarification and the response should in fact be published; or

o It wishes to withdraw the question/clarification.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLETION AND RETURN

Answers should be limited to a maximum of one side of A4 per question, using Ariel Font, Size 11. Once completed please save as a PDF file and return to: [email protected]

Completed questionnaires should be returned by no later than 11th August 2025. Along with your completed responses you are invited to provide any marketing material/information that would help the MOD understand more about your organization and the market you operate in.

Please note that failure to respond to this Supplier Questionnaire will not affect any further participation in any possible future procurement for this capability.