As people are becoming more and more aware of environmental wellness, bottled water products are falling from favour among the industry’s most loyal buyers. According to the Australasian Bottled Water Institute, volume growth is expected to be between seven and eight percent this year, but there has been a marked drop in the number of young people buying the product.
The institute’s chief executive, Geoff Parker, explained, ‘We think it’s due to a number of reasons. Maturity of the category is part of it, the anti-bottled water detractors are good in their messaging, and other categories within health and wellness, such as iced teas, are doing very well.’ Opponents to bottled water are heartened by the news, as they claim that its success has been build on wellbeing scare-campaigning that, in reality, makes huge profits from a precious natural resource, has no dietary benefit compared with tap water and produces large amounts of waste.
Jon Dee, the managing director of activist group Do Something!, commented, ‘It’s really encouraging to see such a drop in consumption of bottled water among young people, because as they grow up, the overall market is definitely going to decline further. Once you stop the habit at a young age, it carries through. We’ve finally reached the tipping point.’ He added that the only reason the volume of bottled water sales still grew, in spite of the fact that fewer people were buying it, was that the companies were doing ‘two-for-one promotions’ as the product was so cheap to make.
However, Sally Loane, director of media and public affairs at Coca-Cola Amatil – which sells about half of Australia’s bottled water – argued that the company buys water at prices set by licence holders, sells the bottled product to retailers at wholesale prices, and the retailers determine the cost to consumers. ‘There are massive costs involved in setting up the bores, then monitoring them, making sure everything’s sustainable, the ongoing hydro-geological tests … There are very big costs involved,’ she said. She also noted that the product’s retail price ‘comes down to what people are willing to pay…The fact is it’s demand-driven and people want it.’
Yet, Dee described the supply price as ‘a scam’. He highlighted, ‘You look at petrol – it goes through a massive production line to get to the point where it can be used. Yet bottled water is twice the price. It’s a huge con.’ He added, ‘People think they’re just using the water that comes out of the spring, but the quality of spring water much of the time isn’t that great. It has to be filtered, just like tap water.’
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