Bottled water is one of the most sought after products in the world. Its sales are growing by an average of 10% per year, and in the next 2022 the turnover of this industry will be 290 billion dollars.
If everything is clear in developing countries, then what is the reason for the increased demand for this product where the population is supplied with high quality tap water?
Bottled water was first sold in the 18th century. In the 1760s, the Boston company Jackson’s Spa filled mineral water into glass bottles, offering it to its clients as a therapeutic agent for various ailments.
In the 19th century, in some countries, manufacturers began to offer bottled drinking water, which is plain but purified. The demand for this product is high, because the tap water in the cities is of extremely low quality and the population suffers from intestinal infections.
Business is actively developing in many countries around the world, until the technology of chlorination of tap water was invented in the 20th century. With the advent of cheap and high quality water in many homes in the US and Europe, the purchase of plain bottled water has almost stopped and only medicinal mineral water is actively sold.
Only groundwater is firmly established for treatment. In 1898, the French physician Louis Perrier established a spa in the town of Verez and opened a factory for bottling mineral water from local sources. Perrier delivers his product to elite hotels and restaurants in Europe, but his business is very small. Everything changed in 1946, when the company was bought by entrepreneurial businessman Gustav Leven. Thanks to him, in a short time, the water from Vereж took the lion’s share of the European market, pushing out competitors such as Evian and Whittle.
In the early 1970s, the Perrier brand became the undisputed leader in Europe and entered the vast American market. In the United States, marketing requires a special approach, so Leven relies primarily on the snobbery of the local consumer.
Water from Europe is presented as a product for the elite, for those who have achieved success in this life and can afford everything. This was a successful strategy for the US market – it worked and from 1975 to 1978 Perrier water sales in the US market increased from 2.5 million to 75 million bottles per year. Healthy lifestyle helps a lot in Leven’s business – bottled water is already considered one of its main attributes.
The industry underwent a real revolution in the 90’s – giants like PepsiCo (Aquafina), Nestle (Pure Life water) and Coca-Cola (Dasani water) introduced their bottled water to the market. Once these manufacturers enter the market, bottled water marks the final victory over tap water.
Analysts at Beverage Marketing Corporation estimate that 460 billion liters of bottled water are sold annually worldwide. The largest consumer of this product is China, whose inhabitants buy 80 billion liters, followed by the United States, where they sell 45 billion liters. Next in consumption are countries with warm climates such as Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, India and Thailand.
The ten leaders in bottled water are the prosperous European countries Germany, Italy and France, which sell 12, 11 and 9 billion liters of bottled water each year, respectively. The demand for this product is high, despite the high quality of tap water.
Have you ever wondered how much more expensive bottled water is than tap water?
The difference in price is approximately 2000 times! There are countries where such water is more expensive than milk, beer and even gasoline. And this is not in developing countries where there is not enough drinking water, but in countries where utilities are the best.
According to Food and Water Watch, a liter of bottled water in the United States is on average three times more expensive than a liter of milk and almost 4 times more expensive than a liter of gasoline.
Why is it happening? Why do people buy plain bottled water without spending money on it? The main advantage of bottled water manufacturers is that it is environmentally friendly, clean and useful to humans. This is offered to consumers through intelligent marketing techniques, information ads and billboards. In fact, what cunning ordinary water traders offer us has nothing to do with reality.
Researchers from the Environmental Working Group, which has been working on bottled water quality for a long time, say that most manufacturers do not hide that their product is just tap water, but has undergone additional purification. 18% of brands still insist on the exceptional properties of their products, but categorically do not want to specify the location of the mineral sources from which they receive their “life-giving fluid”. This means that the source is a simple water pipe.
Laboratory studies show that in most cases bottled water is no different from tap water. The “additional purification” that companies want to talk about in developed countries gives absolutely nothing, because tap water already meets the highest standards.
An interesting fact is that in the US and EU countries the quality of tap water can theoretically be higher than bottled water. This seemingly absurd circumstance is due to the fact that the state controls tap water much more strictly than bottled water.
There are many examples when the water offered by the manufacturers has proven to be dangerous to health. In April 2019, the American magazine Consumer Reports reported that arsenic was found in the water of the six most popular brands in the United States in a concentration dangerous to the human body.
But even if the manufacturer treats their product as carefully as possible, the purified water bottled in plastic bottles may not be clean by default. In the process of storage, even not too long, it inevitably contaminates the microparticles from which the bottles are made. It is also well known that even when slightly heated, plastics begin to emit harmful chemicals that immediately enter the water. Therefore, it is not recommended to leave the bottled water in direct sunlight.
In the ads, the brands emphasize that bottled water tastes better than tap water. Is that true? It is not difficult to confirm this statement, and the University of Vermont has decided to answer this question. They give a group of tasters a taste of tap water and water from a well-known brand, without labels. As it turns out, professional tasters in most cases can not distinguish between tap water and water from a nice bottle of the company, which costs hundreds of times more.
Peter Glake, president of the Pacific Institute, told Business Insider: “It’s a mistake to assume that bottled water is cleaner, healthier or safer than tap water. It is not better regulated, better checked and better controlled. “And when there are problems with tap water, the solution is to invest in modernizing and upgrading our water systems, not bottled water.”
We must not forget that in terms of environmental friendliness in the production of bottled water there is much to be desired. Plastic bottles are one of the most serious pollutants on the planet. In 2016, 2 million tons of plastic were used to produce water bottles in the United States, which required at least 64 million barrels of oil.
We can say with confidence that the general belief that bottled water is better and healthier than ordinary tap water is the result of lobbying the interests of the producers of these products at the highest level and of course the effect of skillfully done advertising.
Business Insider makes a rough estimate of the money invested by Nestle Waters NA, Nestle USA and Coca-Cola to lobby for their interests in the US Congress, and it turns out that at least $ 28 million has been spent for this purpose. And do you know what the main goal of this lobbying is?
There is no promotion of bottled water at all. Manufacturers are trying to reduce the budget costs for public water supply. Well-known brands also invest heavily in counter-advertising tap water, showing its poor quality and health hazards. Every investment here is justified – millions of people around the world are beginning to be afraid of tap water, and this is true even for residents of countries like Britain, Switzerland and France.
The main secret of drinking water manufacturers, which they will never discover voluntarily, is the profitability of their business. Many reputable experts believe that the profits of the players in this market can compete with the profits of the drug cartels from the drug trade. The benefits for world brands are not hundreds, but thousands of percent!
In the American documentary “Stream: For the Love of Water”, released in 2011, the authors give a very simple example. In the early 2000s, Nestle acquired the right to use Michigan water for 99 years. The company pays $ 70,000 for this opportunity, which is about $ 700 a year. What does one of the largest producers of bottled water get from this? The number is staggering – the company earns more than $ 1.8 million a day!
