Message in a Bottle looks at the $50 billion bottle-water market:
We buy bottled water because we think it’s healthy. Which it is, of course: Every 12-year-old who buys a bottle of water from a vending machine instead of a 16-ounce Coke is inarguably making a healthier choice. But bottled water isn’t healthier, or safer, than tap water. 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. It is monitored constantly, and the test results made public.
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And for this healthy convenience, we’re paying what amounts to an unbelievable premium. You can buy a half- liter Evian for $1.35 — 17 ounces of water imported from France for pocket change. That water seems cheap, but only because we aren’t paying attention.In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It’s so good the EPA doesn’t require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.
Where does bottled water come from?
Today, for all the apparent variety on the shelf, bottled water is dominated in the United States and worldwide by four huge companies. Pepsi has the nation’s number-one-selling bottled water, Aquafina, with 13% of the market. Coke’s Dasani is number two, with 11% of the market. Both are simply purified municipal water — so 24% of the bottled water we buy is tap water repackaged by Coke and Pepsi for our convenience. Evian is owned by Danone, the French food giant, and distributed in the United States by Coke.The really big water company in the United States is Nestlé, which gradually bought up the nation’s heritage brands, and expanded them. The waters are slightly different — springwater must come from actual springs, identified specifically on the label — but together, they add up to 26% of the market, according to Beverage Marketing, surpassing Coke and Pepsi’s brands combined.
Where does all the money go?
Since most water brands are owned by larger companies, it’s hard to get directly at the economics. But according to those inside the business, half the price of a typical $1.29 bottle goes to the retailer. As much as a third goes to the distributor and transport. Another 12 to 15 cents is the cost of the water itself, the bottle and the cap. That leaves roughly a dime of profit. On multipacks, that profit is more like 2 cents a bottle.
What I didn’t realize: Fiji water is from Fiji. Really.