That division, which includes Perrier and San Pellegrino brands, accounts for 10 percent of Nestle's total sales. Such a substantial dip in sales helped drag Nestle's profits down 3 percent during the first half of the year.
Nestle isn't the only company to face decreased demand for bottled water; PepsiCo's bottled water sales are also down as consumers are coming to the realization that bottled water is bad for the environment and their budgets. The industry, which has nearly doubled since 2000, contracted by 3.2 percent last year, according to the International Bottled Water Association.
This recent trend of declining sales and profitability at bottled water companies presents an interesting scenario: Could the $11 billion bottled water industry become a dinosaur in the next five or 10 years?
At Primo Water, we certainly hope so.
This rampant water guzzling is a huge threat to our planet. It's gas guzzling under another guise.
America burns through 17 million barrels of oil every year to produce all those convenient bottles of pure spring water. That's enough to fuel 1 million cars!
In addition, each water bottle we buy consumes a quarter of its volume in oil production and transportation costs, as it's trucked cross country from the bottling plant to your local grocery store.
What's more, this nation disposes of 30 billion empty water bottles every year -- 2 million tons of water-bottle plastic winds up in landfills every year. That's because single-serving water bottles have a dismal recycling rate -- just 12 percent compared to 30 percent for other beverage bottles.
Though companies like Brita and Pur are pushing the notion that filtered tap water is the answer to America's bottled water addiction, it's not.
We'll save the detailed debate about tap water versus filtered water versus bottled water versus dispensed water for another post. But we will cast back a decade or more to that period when bottled water was gaining traction with consumers and the industry's sales were growing at double-digit rates.
What primary factors contributed to bottled water's popularity?
Taste, convenience and the ability to enjoy a cold one straight out of the fridge.
That last reason, in particular, is why many people continue to drink bottled water despite the steep environmental consequences. Filtered tap water is still tap water. It sure is convenient, and in some locales around the country, it's probably even tasty.
But thirst-quenchingly cold? All you're ever going to get from the kitchen sink is room temperature water.
Without an alternative -- like an attractive, convenient and affordable Primo water dispenser -- consumers are going to keep drinking bottled water and destroying the planet one 20-ounce PET bottle at a time.
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