The bottled water business is amazing. Much of the bottled water consumed in the US is actually filtered municipal water. The same type of stuff we’ve bathed in and swallowed for years. When reduced to its elementary components one water should be little different than another. As with many things, you’re mostly buying an idea, the concept of health, taste, and purity. But, as a business, bottled water seems simple and the barriers for entry seem low, especially if you’re bottling purified municipal supplies. Some of the pieces:
- Operations: where to put the processing plants to achieve the most strategic benefit? Best location for distribution networks? Best quality and cheapest source waters? Best regulatory and tax environments?
- Supplies: Commitments and contracts with suppliers for equipment, bottles, labeling, trucks, etc.
- Sales: Establishing the distribution network and filling the pipeline with orders from retailers.
- Marketing: Developing the company identity and brand. Developing the actual idea, which is the product.
- Distribution: Getting the end product to retailers.
Bottled water is good, but the best way to go if you drink lots of it is to invest in a good filtration system and filter your tap water. In fact, it would be a good experiment to take several identical plastic bottles and fill them up thusly: one bottle tap water, one bottle filtered water, one bottle distilled water, one bottle spring water, and one bottle of purified pre-bottled water. Refrigerate the group and then set up a taste test. I’d be curious as to the results in ranking.
Related:
- MSN: Is your bottled water coming from a faucet?
- Organic Consumers Association: Is America’s $8 Billion Bottled Water Industry a Fraud? (It’s now a $9 billion industry)
- How water bottlers tap into all sorts of sources “That same year, the commission held a blind taste test near the Ferry Building. The 300 participants were offered samples of two popular bottled-water brands (Crystal Geyser and Aquafina) and local tap water. Half said they preferred the tap water. Twenty-five percent picked bottled water. And 25 percent said they couldn’t tell the difference.”
- Nestle Waters: Regional brands: I was interested to see that Nestle owns both Ozarka and Poland Springs.
