30/11/10
Bottled water is again showing signs of growth. According to sector estimates, a continuation of the rise in consumption over the past two years would see retail sales restored to record 2006 levels, which peaked at more than 2.2 billion litres.
The decline in 2007 and 2008 was put down to a combination of poor summers and increased environmental awareness among consumers. What effect the price signals had in the reduction is unknown.
Tap water simultaneously raised its profile, and its quality and greener credentials became universally accepted.
The distinction between mainstream retail consumer product and essential public health service is still clear. However, high quality packaged water is important in modern societies, and indeed the tap water industry relies on having access to supplies of bottled water as part of contingency plans to deal with outages.
The water industry is revisiting with bottled water providers the arrangements to ensure that bottled water can demonstrate compliance to drinking water standards at the time of consumption.
