From advocare08 at SupplementalScience.com, July 29th, 2007:
Here”™s an excellent article on the bottled water industry in a recent edition of Fast Company magazine. It speaks both to the business of bottled water and the health benefits (or lack of, depending on the quote you read) of it.
A few notable quotes:
“Last year, we spent more on Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Evian, Aquafina, and Dasani than we spent on iPods or movie tickets–$15 billion. It will be $16 billion this year.”
“In 1976, the average American drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water a year, according to Beverage Marketing Corp. Last year, we each drank 28.3 gallons of bottled water–18 half-liter bottles a month.”
“Indeed, while the United States is the single biggest consumer in the world”™s $50 billion bottled-water market, it is the only one of the top four–the others are Brazil, China, and Mexico–that has universally reliable tap water. Tap water in this country, with rare exceptions, is impressively safe.”
In a late breaking update July 27, 2007 – the following news came out about some popular bottled water:
Pepsi”™s Aquafina is now the best-selling water brand in the U.S., while Coke”™s Dasani ranks second. Often images on the label show mountains, snow or other bodies of water. For example, the label design on Aquafina (from Pepsi) gives a feeling of mountains and snow rather than bottled at Pepsi plants using processed municipal water. Coke”™s Dasani, also one of the leading bottled water brands is processed municipal water with added minerals. PepsiCo Inc. announced today that it will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water, a concession to the growing environmental and political opposition to the bottled water industry.
According to Corporate Accountability International, a U.S. watchdog group, the world”™s No. 2 beverage company will include the words “Public Water Source” on Aquafina labels.
“If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it”™s a reasonable thing to do,” said Michelle Naughton, a PepsiCo North America spokeswoman.
Image: Water Secrets