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 Two of the biggest players are Dasani (Coke) and Aquafina (Pepsi), both sell bottled tap water. Pepsi is the tap water leader with 13% of the market and Coke has 11% of the bottled water market, which adds to the two titans holding sway over 24% of the market. While bottling straight bottled tap water and reselling it may not be criminal, these companies do add a process for marketing and taste concerns. The water taken from municipalities is treated through a reverse osmosis filtration. This gives the companies an opportunity to say they did something to the water rather than just fill a plastic bottle with tap water. The other thing it does is give a uniformity of flavor among bottlers. The bottle packaged in Des Moines tastes the same in as the one bottled in Tulsa as the one bottled in Tucson. Reverse osmosis filtration does not make perfectly clean tap water any healthier, besides this process was already used for the soft drinks Coke and Pepsi already bottle. Essentially, the soda pop giants bottle and sell the same water they use for soft drinks without the syrup and carbonation. This saves them significant amount of dollars, especially when they can sell this bottled tap water for the same amount or more than their other soft drinks. Nestlé is actually the largest bottler of water with a 26% market share, beating both Pepsi and Coke combined. Nestlé has purchased a large number of niche bottlers and leads the market in spring water, which is essentially the same as well water that rural dwellers have out of tap. The unfortunate side effect is that this bottling drains aquifers that rural people have depended upon for hundreds of years. Still, again, there is nothing special about bottled spring water that people cannot get out of the tap. The true humor is that in taste test after taste test, tap water cannot be distinguished from bottled water. |
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