France shuns bottled water

The French love affair with mineral water is waning as high prices and concern for the environment have made tap water attractive again.

A five-year slide in sales of bottled water deepened in the first half of the year with a 6.1 percent drop from the previous summer in supermarket sales according to figures from Iri France. 

Over two thirds of the French now say that they regularly drink tap water while only 56 percent imbibe still bottled water at least once a week. That compares with 73 percent in 2003, the peak of a two-decade boom in which French brands led a world-wide flight from the public water supply (from Sofres 2008 study here).

In a sign of the times, Evian, the world's top brand, shut its Alpine bottling plant for a week in mid-August to reduce its stock. Sparkling water is suffering a similar decline. The rest of the world has not lost its thirst for the bottled version, but the makers are worried that the backlash in France heralds a global trend.

Evian, Volvic, Contrex, Badoit and the other brands are suffering from the financial pinch that is causing the French to shun designer water. Cheaper brands are benefiting. Everyone now knows that municipal water is supposed to be just as healthy as most bottled brands but they do not agree with the official line that it tastes as good. They are aware, though,  that the bottled version costs about a couple of hundred times more per litre.  The French are still spending an average of 130 euros a year on portable water, the government says. They were overtaken by the Italians several years ago as the biggest drinkers of the stuff.

People are increasingly influenced by the environmental argument. Even in restaurants, where the bottles are glass, it is no longer quite so chic to drink water that has dumped a load of carbon on the planet during production and shipping. "Drinking bottled water creates 10 to 20 million cubic feet of waste per year in France," the Ministry of Ecology said in a recent campaign. Yet another blow to the bottle has been widespread publicity in France for a study at the University of Pennsylvania last spring that knocked down the longstanding belief that you must glug water all day to lose weight and stay healthy. 

The industry is fighting back with lavish campaigns that trumpet health benefits, however fanciful. Evian, one of the water brands of the Danone group, is said to be the "declared source of youth by the body". That reminds me of a joke when imported water took off in the USA in the 1980s: Evian is just naive spelt backwards.   Franck Riboud, Danone's chairman, says the makers must market their message better. "Our trade is not transporting bottles of water a a euro each in lorries. It is selling brands with a specific origin and taste," he told La Tribune newspaper.

Below: a recent cheeky advert for Cristaline, a low-price bottled water, mocking the claims that tap water is just as pure. Nitrates, lead and chlorine are coming out of the tap. The caption says "I don't save on the water I drink"

 

Comments

[ken]

I would much rather pay for boutique wine than boutique water (even if the wine is almost all water).

[Terry]

"The French are still spending an average of 130 euros a year on portable water, the government says."

Americans are up there too. Some complain about $4.00 gallon of gas prices but are paying nearly $1.50 for a small bottle of Poland Spring. I find it incredible that water costs more than soda.

I think CB hit on most the factors water was so popular, ie the portability and the weight nonsense. There also seemed to be a "coolness" factor that went with it. Holding the bottle and occasionally drinking it, rather than Jolt Cola, gave off an aura of health and fitness. I couldn't care less about the environmental footprint of water but I know some euro lefties get all huffy about it. But I wonder if the diminishing purchasing power in France (as in the US) is giving water the heave-ho.

On a somewhat related note, Starbucks is also dying an ignoble death here in America. $6 lattes times five days a week...well, you do the math.

[qwerty]

My tapwater has such a strong, bad taste that it's only drinkable when disguised with aspirine, toothpaste etc. If I was dying of thirst I probably wouldn't drink it straight. That chlorine taste is direct proof that there is a need to kill all the bacteria in the natural source where it comes from. there is a reason for bottled water.

[david nordon-angus]

There is indeed a reason for it notwithstanding the 'cool' aspects of toting a bottle all day. Quite simply, trusting the word of water boards is for the fairies. Most analysis shows far greater nitrate levels in the stuff obtained from the robinet. As for the cost aspect, one wonders how much the french spend on filling their pools with the stuff or on eating beef/steak which consumes 1,500L of water per Kg of meat
produced/consumed! Personally, I just prefer the taste.

[rocket]

CB

"Everyone now knows that municipal water is supposed to be just as healthy as most bottled brands but they do not agree with the official line that it tastes as good."

Do the water residue test!

Take a glass of tapwater and put it on top of a heater until it evaporates. Then try to clean the calcium residue that is left around the waterline in the glass. The white cliffs of dover inside your glass may make for a good party favor but I doubt they would be particularly healthy ingested into your body.

I live in the 17th as our Lord Charles and the level of "calcaire" in the water is absolutely horrible.

When I moved to France many moons ago I thought drinking bottle water was stupid but now I swear by it. The IHT did an article about 25 years ago how American Secretaries always had a diet fizzy drink with them at their desk and the French secretary had a bottle of water. This in part may explain the weight surplus experiences by her/his American counterpart or what is commonly know as the fat ass syndrome. Also the American will think that since it is written diet XXX on the can, then it presents no weight gain risk once ingested. (Beverage company propaganda of course) This is not true as the fizzy drinks always create air in the stomach and all of the other chemicals inside of it contribute to weight gain or organ oxidation.

I do believe in the "bienfaits" of bottled water and am wondering who gave the funding for this UPEN study.

Same holds true for natural springs for health. Last Nov when I was in Florida I went to a natural spring on the west coast.

http://www.warmmineralsprings.com/index.shtml

Not one American to be seen only Eastern Europeans bathing. Even the signs were written in Russian and Polish. In Florida especially the medical Industry is so strong that people believe in miracle pills.

As one Russian guy told me while I was there.

"You Americans took Alaska and we have taken back this pond!"

[Tom Benford]

Put a couple of sticks of bamboo charcoal in the kettle(in France?) you boil the water in. When cool,overnight, decant into a two-litre PET bottle and keep in the fridge. The brightest, and nicest tasting, still water you'll ever meet

[Jacqueline]

What happened for the real reason for drinking bottled mineral water? That is, that the particular water from the particular source had certain properties which were beneficial to particular medical issues. Badoit for digestive problems or Cointrex for the liver etc.

[Gill]

As Jacqueline says, in France there may be health reasons for drinking certain bottled waters. But it is also possible to have health risks with some which contain high levels of sodium. Always read what it says on the bottle.
In France we filter the tap water which we use for tea or coffee otherwise we have white calcium deposits floating around on the top of our drinks. I do, however, drink the tap water on its own or for mixing with cold drinks - calcium can be good for the bones and the water is not excessively chlorinated in our area.
I personally can't stand the mineral taste of Badoit - just a matter of taste.

[Francois D]

In Paris, I advise you about the 108 "Wallace Fountains" whose water quality is guaranteed. And above all free ...

They originated from the initiative of a British philanthrope, Sir Richard Wallace, in 1872.
Photos, history and adresses:

http://www.paris.fr/portail/Environnement/Portal.lut?page_id=1312&document_type_id=5&document_id=11531&portlet_id=3136

They are regularly monitored (but the cups, that were committed with, were banned...)

They are very beautiful ("les 3 Graces"). Those who know a little Paris, cannot ignore them.

This CB post is the result of a tradition: british solicitude about drinking water in Paris (France).

___________________________

Three other small remarks:

-- It may seem absurd that there is only one water circuit: one should distinguish water for food and water for cleaning.

-- It is very good to vary mineral waters because some may contain components and not others (for healthy people)

-- Because the problem of phthalates, I think that bottled water glasses are better (if possible) than plastic. It is inadvisable to leave for a long time (more than one day?) mineral water in a plastic bottle opened (especially if direct sun).

[Dodo]

Having the choice between the French mineral water and the Anglo-Saxonic soda, the French fall in love with mineral water, the other with soda.
Where is the problem ?

The same for wine and wisky.
Vive la différence !

[Lex]

Another alternative is a point of use water filtration system. I use a solid carbon block system that is mounted under my kitchen sink and has a tap on the counter top. The filter is about the size of an American football -- or rugby ball -- and it cost about $200 when I bought it fifteen years ago. I have to replace the carbon filter every few years at a cost of $30. In my shop, I sell water filters that mount on the end of the faucet, that retail for $30 to $50. I also sell a pitcher that has a carbon filter. The better the quality filter, the better the quality of water. Of course, this water is used for cooking and drinking, but not for washing.

I also sell, but don't use myself, water filters that attach to the shower head. These are expensive to operate, but those who use them say that showering without chlorinated water makes one's hair and skin much softer.

Point of use filtration seems much more reasonable to me, and the filter that I use at home initially cost me about the same as a year's supply of bottled water. There are good reasons why we treat our water supplies, and different areas have different needs. Though the water in most areas of Boston is safe to drink --we do have old industrial contamination of some water supplies -- the water generally has an odd taste due to our proximity to the ocean and to large areas of wet lands.

A side note: a large percentage of my clientele are university students. (There are about 180,000 university students in Boston) They are just returning to school now, and I have noticed a new commitment to being green. Many, many of them -- young men included -- are carrying shopping bags. They are very interested in using green cleaning chemicals, and they are asking for and buying the old fashioned components of home made cleaning agents. I am quite impressed with this quiet commitment to be a more responsible inhabitant of this planet. My customers who were the earliest to begin adopting green habits were women over sixty.

[Lex]

"the French fall in love with mineral water, the other with soda.
Where is the problem ?"

Dodo--

Go easy there, or the British and Americans might begin talking about the hydro-phobia of the French. :-)

[Dodo]

LEX ;)

You know, I suppose Times & Trends, who publish a market research publication for the consumer packaged goods industry, where we can found several interesting informations on France, Germany, Ireland, GB, Italy, Greece, Spain etc...
It is where my information come from

BTW : If it is the bathroom you are talking about, let remember that if the French spend 120 with shampoo (The firt amoung european countries), our British friends spend poor 74, if the French spend 116 in deodorant (the first, again), our British friends come close, as second with 114.
It is true that the French are not the first in Toothpaste, since Germany and Netherlands spend 113, the French 108 and our British Friends spend ...65 (The last one, execo with Greece)
Try Google with "Times & Trends"

The point was ?

[christopher muir]

I recollect watching a couple of American tourists in Paris ordering, in very broken French, what they thought would be refreshing mineral water. They were surprised by the taste of eau-de-vie.

[azloon]

did perrier ever make a complete comeback after that arsenic (or something not so nice) contamination scare over ten years ago?

i have to say i never did drink that stuff quite the same way again. however, i did drink hundred of bottles of so-called 'spring water' here in u.s. which i found out later is usually taken from the municipal water supply of exotic sounding cities and towns.

for 'avec gaz' type water, i switched to pelligrino which is probably de-salinated canal water from venice.

[colin grayson]

rocket , am afraid you are not correct about the calcium in water ; it is an important contributor to good health , both for children and adults

I come from an area with extremely soft water , and years ago the incidence of poor teeth and bones in children was investigated , and the cause was found to be lack of calcium in the diet ...it normally comes from the water
at the same time it was found that areas with low calcium had a high incidence of heart disease ; these studies have been confirmed elsewhere
this low calcium is explained by the water coming straight off the granite ....in fact when sir francis drake was mayor he installed good drinking water by having granite lined channels run into the city ...they are still there !
of course we also have a problem because radon gas [ radio-active ] escapes from cracks in the granite ...but that is another subject !

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

Of course, Perrier did made a complete comeback in France. If I remember well, the story did not make a big fuss here at the time - the French have most probably better working livers than Americans and are more tolerant ...

BTW, Azloon, when you drink exotic "spring water" or processed Venice canal water , you could improve the stuff through (careful) addition of iodine - this is good for the brains ... May be you should discuss the matter with your physician or your pharmacist :))

[valerie]

Oh, please, fat a*s syndrome? We all know people who drink and eat whatever they want, even junk, without gaining wait. And we all know people who eat and drink sensibly and still fight the battle of the bulge.

I think bottled water with bubbles is much more digest than flat water, whether from the tap or the bottle. A Perrier or San Pellegrino with a meal is just the ticket.

What always irrritated me about the French and their bottled water was their insistence that some brands were yummy to drink when they were NOT! St Yorre, Contrex yummy? Who are you kidding? Never could get a Frenchy to admit that what they were drinking was just not tasty, especially the very salty-tasting ones. Yuck.

[Judith]

I saw on Paris TV that there is an official 'taster' for the water of Paris. I think that is just wonderful.
Water in Australia is checked for every possible problem to health but noone would ever think of testing it for taste.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

The simple minded or barmy sons of aristocratic English families in the past (and some today in the present) were put into the Army or the Clergy, but Lord Northcliffe had a brother thought to be unsuited for any kind of work, who spent his time in the gymnasium or travelling thorugh France by bicycle. One day he was told of a magic well with "health giving" water. He bought it. It became Perrier Water, and the nouveau riche owner designed the bottles based on the Indian Clubs he used to swing in the gymnasium. Jealous wine growers spread the story that the water caused liver trouble and the drinking of it brought on cirhossis.

[Robert Marchenoir]

A technical note to the Times Online website wizards: I find it incredible how difficult it is to locate The Times' blogs unless you have already bookmarked them.

I may have missed something, but I found exactly zero links to the blog section on the home page.

Then, I went to the site map. Sure, there is a "Blogs" entry under B, but I missed it at first, despite searching the page twice: the entries are counter-intuitively classified in alphabetical order from left to right across three columns, instead of the expected top to bottom, one column at a time.

After that, I tried the Comment section. There, you do find a "Blogs" tab near the top of the page. But if you happen to miss it, there is no selection of blog posts underneath in order to show you that the Times' reporters do write blogs, and encourage you to have a look.

Actually, I wanted to find Charles Bremner's blog. Being too lazy for once to unfold my deeply-nested bookmarks, I decided to have a go at it through the Times homepage, which I happened to have open in my browser at that time. It turned out that I did have to use my bookmarks instead.

The only time when the blogs get a little exposure is when an editor decides to push a link to a specific post on a specific page, because he thinks it is especially newsworthy, or relevant to other articles on the same page.

I remember making the same remark a long time ago, when I first discovered Charles Bremner's blog after a considerable period of reading The Times online.

It's a shame, because I'm sure this results in many people missing interesting blogs from your staff, and not even being aware of their existence.

[Moionfire]

Tap water is just as portable.

Every morining, fill your bottle with tap water, and bring it with you to work. It is that simple.

[dot king]

Robert Marchenoir:

if on Homepage, you go to the box with the list World News, Europe News, UK News etc, and click on Europe News, you get a page which has a direct link to the CB Blog. Sometimes you need to scroll down a bit, but it's always there.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

I have seen American visitors drink and exclaim: "Ah, London water ... marvellous." I have never bought a bottle of water in the UK (or in France)*** looking upon those who do as foolish squanderbugs. Some finicky ones boil the tap water then refrigerate it. In my village in the Herault I found the tap water perfectly drinkable, but the villagers went to a well near the Mairie to fill bonbons, and when I asked why they said: "There is no calcaire in this, consequently no chalk deposit on the haricots verte."
Fussy, as gourmets are, was my conclusion, because what is wrong with a little limestone in the water? In areas abundant with grottos containing stalactites and stalagmites it is to be expeced.
I had wondered why the menu in the British army in France listed "Vichy Carrots". Perhaps it was to make them sound less "working class" as that Royal Navy snob had complained in his Mess aboard ship.
*** Tap water in parts of Spain can be undrinkable. In a small town in the South the locals took the officials to the European court to force them them to provide (it is the law) fresh water from stand-pipes at the end of main streets. Some nightclubs in Spain put extra flouride in their tap water, forcing the young clientele to pay extortionate prices for tiny plastic bottles.

[Jeanne]

I fill an Evian bottle from the tap in my Parisian apartment every morning and take it with me to ballet class, where I drink it. I also drink Paris tap water with meals. Paris tap water is very good. California tap water, on the other hand, is terrible, and there I drink Evian.

[Jeanne]

I fill an Evian bottle from the tap in my Parisian apartment every morning and take it with me to ballet class, where I drink it. I also drink Paris tap water with meals. Paris tap water is very good. California tap water, on the other hand, is terrible, and there I drink Evian.

[Jeanne]

I fill an Evian bottle from the tap in my Parisian apartment every morning and take it with me to ballet class, where I drink it. I also drink Paris tap water with meals. Paris tap water is very good. California tap water, on the other hand, is terrible, and there I drink Evian.

[Jeanne]

I also agree with the comment that the Times blogs are hard to find on the website. I've now bookmarked this one, but before I did that it was impossible--sometimes I'd come upon it through a link to a specific topic and then spend an hour reading all of the entries I'd missed. Finally I had to ask Charles, who kindly gave me the address, and finally got smart and bookmarked it.

[azloon]

Jeanne

hard to find w/o a bookmark, i agree, and not so easy either to figure out how to avoid multiple postings.

big sister is going to have you pegged as a 'technoklutz.'

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Or is Jeanne the advertising manager of Evian water, promoting sales? Or am I just cynical about pen names? Or is Jeanne being naive (evian backwards) about finding the Bremner blog? It's as easy as falling off a (b)log.

[David Powell]

A few years ago it was reported in the press in South Wales that an enterprising individual had obtained a grant from the WDA and set up in business selling bottled water. The business went quite well for some time until it was discovered that he was bottling water from the mains supply.

Mind you, the water is very sweet in South Wales.

[dot king]

'technoklutz.'

luvvit!

I first came across the word "klutz" in "The Women's Room" ("beware, this book changes lives")

Still in general use then? Or just by "baby-boomers"?

[qwerty]

A message for all technoklutzes:

if your PC is abominally slow, crashes when you get impatient with it and you think, in agreement with the last 2 technicians who did interventions and charged you @!# euros, that (1) it's your fault because you created glitches when you installed your recent and less recent software (and because you're illtreating it), (2) it's Bill Gate's fault because Windows doesn't endure more than 2 years on a computer - I have the answer: it's NORTON ANTIVIRUS screwing up your computer. Just chuck it out - it only cost you 30 or 45 euros anyway, and get KASPERSKY. See how many viruses it immediately finds and destroys, with the result that your computer works as new.

I was thinking of buying a Mac, and I still will, but only when Snow Leopard comes out next year (love that name).

[Lex]

Klutz is a Yiddish word, and it is widely used in American English, as are many other Yiddish words.

I agree, technoklutz is a delightful construction.

[Daniel Strohl]

QWERTY,

"and get KASPERSKY"

There is an alternative, and free of charge BTW - i.e a Tchech program called AVAST; I use it for years without any problem and it does not slow down the system as it is sometimes the case with Kaspersky if I believe what I read somewhere .

AVAST update (automatically) their virus data base almost daily, sometimes 2 times a day. I am speaking of the free of charge version - they do have a professional version too.

PS : may be Kaspersky and Avast are better at technics and their American competitors better at making dollars :)

Mac has the reputation to be (almost) virus free. Linux systems are also very good in that respect, but require an "apprentissage" if one is merely a Windowsklutz (my case) ...

If a system gets slower and slower, a disk maintenance is a good practice. Windows has two programs for that, to be used sequentially :
1. Nettoyage de disque (Disk cleaning ?) - throws away all obsolete files (for instance temporary Internet files)
2. Disk defragmenting - it takes some time, but it is worth the effort.

[qwerty]

thanks, Daniel. The technician defragmented the disk and did some other cleaning up, but the change was not noticeable - Windows kept blocking in spite of everything. And then when I got rid of Norton and installed Kaspersky, it was like a new computer. Maybe Kaspersky slows it down, but compared to performance under Norton....

Norton (this the technician told me) are quite perverse because it's not that easy to get rid of the program: you have to download a disintallation tool from their website, you can't just use the machin habituel.

So I'm quite happy for the moment. BTW, said technician, who doesn't like Apple, told me that Mac is now on Linux, and therefore there may be less stability than before on Mac????

Oh - and I see Kaspersky updating continuously, almost every time I connect to Internet.

Another great thing I discovered, and not expensive: Carbonite, pour la sauvegarde à distance des données. That works automatically too, whenever you're online. All your saved files are marked with a green circle, and those not yet saved with a red one. Very simple to use.

[Daniel Strohl]

Qwerty,

Thanks for the info - Mac being Linux is new for me (I am only a user, not a specialist). I think that Mac and the various Linux distributions are implementations of Unix - they are "cousins" :)

Tomorrow morning, we leave home for a few days in the Alps (may be in Evian too, but without the water, at least for me :). As soon as we are back, I will have a look at Carbonite.

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

QWERTY = Snow Leopard? Was not a leopard found inthe snow in Hem's short story (filmed with |Greg Peck and the lovely Ava) whichhad lost its way orwa "trying to find its soul" etc.

[azloon]

other yiddish words it would be helpful to know if you move to new york, chicago, LA, SF:

goy, kvetsh, mentsch (mensch), meshugener (meshugena), nosh, schlep, shliemiel, schlock, shmaltz, schmuck, shiksa, schtik, tuches (tush), yente.

ordinary u.s. urbanites, jewish and goy, commonly use these terms, or at least know what some of them mean, or at least they used to.

[azloon]

i should have used 'goyim' for the plural

Terry, please grade my paper. i am interested in your scottish 'take.'

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Azloon: There was a sexually explicit book written by one Molly Parkin, which drew a local review: "She is a disgrace to the Valley". She was known in Fleet St as Polly Merkin".

[peter kinsley www.peterkinsley.com]

Azloon -- just remembered another:
schnoolikker, used in London for a man who goes around in hot weather sniffing ladies' bicycle seats!
Schalom.