Water: We drank 26m bottles in one week of heatwave. But at what cost?
What's your tipple: Fiji or Evian? Do you Highland Spring or head for the Malvern Hills? Now, more than ever, we are what we drink. But how much good is it doing us or the planet? Jonathan Owen reports
Published: 23 July 2006
Water is life. It is also money. Amid last week's soaring temperatures, water also emerged from the shadows of other popular drinks to become one of the fastest growing commercial "brands" in the world. It may fall free from the heavens, but the sale of H2O is making people rich.
As temperatures nudged up to the 37C mark last week, executives behind companies selling bottle water metaphorically rubbed their hands in glee.
"For every degree the temperature rises above 14C, sales of water increase by 5.2 per cent," said Richard Lamming, of the British Soft Drinks Association. "This means that at 28C sales of water double."
He is not alone in praying for continued sunshine. Companies selling bottled water last week reported the biggest sales increase in the history of the industry - with 26 million bottles sold last week alone, a rise of 80 per cent on the same week last year.
Bottled water is now estimated to be worth more than £1.9bn in the UK alone, with 1.7 billion litres sold in 2005.
Tap water costs a tiny fraction of bottled water, typically about a thousandth of the price at £1 per 1,000 litres. By contrast, the average cost of a single litre of bottled water is 90p.
While supermarkets reported record sales, bottled water companies who are making millions in profits struggled to keep up with demand.
Tony Robson, managing director of Abbey Well, one of the UK's top 10 brands of bottled water, found it hard to contain himself: "It has gone mad, absolutely berserk. We think this sort of weather could carry on for another two weeks."
Some bottled water now costs more per litre than petrol, beer and soft drinks.
Sainsbury's told The Independent on Sunday it had sold five million bottles of water last week, up 80 per cent on this time last year, and Somerfield is on track to have its biggest week ever on water and soft drinks.
Yet other supermarkets refused to reveal how much profit they are making, apparently embarrassed by the riches that the sun has brought.
The water manufacturers are similarly coy about the bonanza they have enjoyed from the heatwave. Multinational companies such as Danone Foods and Nestlé dominate the market. These two companies alone account for over £300m in sales of bottled water over the past year.
But why the fixation with bottled water? You are, it seems, what you drink.
Peter York, the style guru, said: "There are people who quite deliberately buy a cheap own-brand water. There are fans of Volvic, which has a distinctive taste.
"The old certainties have gone and the hierarchy is not what it once was. But I guess it would still be headed by longstanding famous European brands in glass bottles that cost more but are sort of seen as dinner party or restaurant water.
"A hierarchy still does exist but it is not nearly as rigid as it used to be. There are people who would slap an enormous plastic bottle down on the table deliberately to show that they didn't care a toss."
But while the summer may be boosting the fortunes of water companies, concerns are growing at the environmental costs of producing and transporting bottled water, not to mention what happens to the millions of bottles used - many of which end up on landfill sites.
According to the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, most containers for bottled water are made from non-degradable plastics and are not recycled. This results in an estimated 500,000 tons of plastic waste being dumped each year which can take hundreds of years to break down.
The cost is not only limited to the production process. More than 22 million tons of bottled water is transported around the world each year, with a resulting cost in carbon emissions.
The most insane example of this is almost certainly Fiji. A ridiculously chic favourite with Hollywood celebrities and wannabes, the water is shipped half-way across the world to the UK. Sales in Selfridges, where a one-litre bottle costs £1.95, went up five-fold last week.
Great news for Selfridges perhaps, but Germana Canzi, a spokesperson for Friends of the Earth, said: "If we are serious about combating climate change we must tackle the damage being caused by transporting food and drink unnecessarily across Britain and around the world. British tap water is of a very high quality. By filling up empty bottles from the tap, rather than buying water from a shop, you'll save money, cut waste and reduce the pollution caused by water miles."
Some companies are starting to take note. Belu Natural Mineral Water, which sources its water in the UK to minimise transport costs, recently launched a biodegradable and compostable plastic bottle.
Mai Simonsen, founding member of Belu, said: "This can dramatically reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfills and gives everyone an easy way to help protect the environment."
The company contributes 100 per cent of its net profits to clean water projects, claiming that every bottle of water purchased in the UK provides someone in India or Africa with clean water for one month.
But such concerns were far from the minds of millions of Britons desperate for water to cope with the heat which, ironically enough, is a result of the increasing apparent effects of climate change.
For people such as 28-year-old Katie North from Clapham, London, price is much more of an issue: "I only carry water around in the heat, I don't particularly mind which brand it happens to be. It's too expensive though; I paid £1.40 for a 500ml bottle today. You're paying for the convenience."
Ying La, 28, from London, said last week that she only carries water on hot days: "But I normally try and drink eight glasses of tap water at home a day if I can. I don't mind buying bottled water when I'm out."
Marie Chelter, 52, from Florida in the US, always carries bottled water: "If you're from Florida you know never to drink tap water, so if I do I have to filter it. I don't mind, it purifies it and makes it safer. I pay no attention to the price really."
But Andrew Marsh, of the Consumer Council for Water, finds this hard to understand: "It is a matter of concern and there is no reason at all not to drink tap water. It is very safe and closely checked and monitored. Consumers, particularly those on low incomes, can save a heck of a lot of money by drinking tap water. We would support more access to water fountains, certainly every school should have one, public buildings and places that get a lot of visitors."
Jo Jacobius, of the British Bottled Water Producers, defended his industry: "A large quantity of the bottled water sold in this country is British and yet very often it seems hard for customers to source British water. We would like to see more consumers demanding locally sourced water."
Eleven per cent of all bottled water sold in the UK is "other purified water", otherwise known as "table water". This is effectively reprocessed tap water. The most notorious example of this was the failed attempt by Coca-Cola to market its Dasani brand of water. Once it became publicly know that the water was glorified tap water, sales dropped and the company quietly dropped the brand. Ms Jacobius admits that there are still restaurants that try to pass it off as natural mineral water and charge their customers a premium for it.
Manufacturers and retailers refuse to disclose the real costs of producing bottled water or their profit margins, but figures provided to The Independent on Sunday by Euromonitor show how profitable the business has become. In 2005, the total manufacturers sold their product for was £1.06bn. Retailers sold that product on to the public for £1.9bn - almost double what they paid for it.
Yet the millions of Britons buying bottled water may be best off sticking with tap water, according to industry commentators. Mary Carmichael, brand news editor at The Grocer magazine, said: "You are paying for packaging and image. The companies have done a very good job in giving an image to brands. It is still H2O at the end of the day."
However, data from market analyst Mintel shows that the proportion of people drinking bottled water increased from just over a third in 2000 to more than half in 2004. Since 1997, the average yearly spend per person on bottled water has more than doubled to £31.90.
Alan Hussien, a 27-year-old from London, is one of the millions of Britons who now regularly drink bottled water. He said, "I always carry water with me everywhere, I don't mind the cost. I drink a lot of water as it is just so good for you."
Barrie Clarke from Water UK, which represents the interests of publicly owned water companies, is not celebrating the increasing sales in bottled water. "Logically we do not need to spend all this money on bottled water," he said. "The market is bizarre. People, for reasons best know to themselves, think that it will somehow be better for them than tap water."
That view was echoed by 44-year-old Crispin Wood from London: "I prefer tap water over branded water", he said. "Bottled water is so expensive; the public is usually ripped off."
The water winners
The bottled water industry is growing rapidly in Britain; there are now at least 200 companies fighting for market share.
NAME: Fiji Water
PRICE: £1.95 a litre
SALES SLOGAN: "The Nature of Water"
MARKET PROFILE: Popular with celebrities, it is transported half-way around the world to get here, to the dismay of environmentalists
NAME: Highland Spring
PRICE: 75p a litre
SALES SLOGAN: A natural mineral water from organic land
MARKET PROFILE: The company is claiming its best-ever June, after hot weather brought total sales of 23.6 million litres, worth £50.9m
NAME: Evian
PRICE: 85p for two litres
SALES SLOGAN: "Your natural source of youth"
MARKET PROFILE: Over 230 million litres were sold in the UK in 2005, up 22 per cent on 2003's figures, with sales worth £89.8m
NAME: Perrier
PRICE: 79p for 750ml
SALES SLOGAN: "Get fresh with Perrier"
MARKET PROFILE: Nestlé claims to have sold three million units of the water, which comes from the Vergueze region of France, in the past 12 months
NAME: Volvic
PRICE: 61p for 1.5 litres
SALES SLOGAN: "Filtered through volcanic rocks to fill you with volcanicity"
MARKET PROFILE: The UK's biggest selling bottled water, owned by Danone, selling 268 litres, worth £129.9m in 2005
NAME: Vittel
PRICE: 59p for 1.5 litres
SALES SLOGAN: "ReVittelise your day"
MARKET PROFILE: Aimed at young, active consumers, it sold 45 million litres in 2005. Its source, in the Vosges region, was discovered in 1854
NAME: Speyside Glenlivet
PRICE: 99p for 750ml
SALES SLOGAN: "Unique and natural blend of minerals"
MARKET PROFILE: Turnover is expected to reach £2.5m in 2006, and increasingly exported
NAME: Buxton
PRICE: 62p for 1.5 litres
SALES SLOGAN: "One of the purest natural mineral waters in the world"
MARKET PROFILE: Also Nestlé-owned, sales grew by over a third between 2003 and 2005, when it sold 69 million litres in the UK
NAME: Dasani
PRICE: No longer on sale in the UK
SALES SLOGAN: "Pure, still water"
MARKET PROFILE: Disastrous. Owner Coca-Cola was forced to stop selling it here when it was revealed to befiltered tap water
And guess what's cheaper than water...
Organic milk (62p/litre), fresh orange juice (69p/litre), Coca-Cola (68p/litre), Schweppes lemonade (84p/litre) and Carlsberg lager (£1.26/litre) are all less expensive than Speyside Glenlivet bottled water, which costs £1.32 a litre. Even petrol at 97.5p a litre costs less.
THE QUESTION
So what's wrong with tap water anyway?
NOT A GREAT DEAL, according to the Government's Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), which is involved in a campaign to encourage school children to drink more tap water. Figures recently released by the DWI showed that tap water met stringent quality standards in 99.96 per cent of cases in 2005.
THERE ARE FEW nutritional differences between bottled and tap water, according to the British Nutrition Foundation. Regulations are often tighter for tap than bottled water. For instance, bottled water companies do not have to give a chemical and bacteriological breakdown on their labelling.
TAP WATER COSTS a tiny fraction of bottled water, typically being about a thousandth of the price. The average cost is £1 per 1,000 litres.
PROVIDING YOU PAY your water rates you can have more drinking water than you're likely to need and it does not have the environmental impacts associated with the bottled water industry.
TAP WATER DOES not lack anything that bottled water has. Levels of minerals vary in bottled waters, but ideally the nutritional requirements for minerals should be supplied through a healthy balanced diet.
TABLE WATER IS usually no more than repackaged tap water. It's often sold in expensive looking bottles by restaurants that charge top prices.
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