Bottled water becomes threat to soda

Mary Clare Carley don't remember last time I drank bottled water. She buys water in supermarkets of the United States US $ 1 or less than brands like Crystal Springs or Great Value. "If I'm not with my bottle of water, I feel incomplete," says 34-year-old teacher, sitting at a food court in the city of Atlanta, with its huge bottle.
Despite the obvious drawbacks-plastic and extra cost for something that comes out almost for free from the tap, the thirst for bottled water continues to grow. The volume of bottled water in the u.s. has grown 7% last year, which puts the liquid on the way to overcome the sodas in 2017, according to predictions of the Beverage Marketing Corp., which monitors the industry.
Nestle SA, which has a Pure Life and Poland Springs among its brands, sold more water than the volume of soda sold by Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. in 2014, which made the company Switzerland-Dr Pepper-the third largest manufacturer of soft drinks in the United States, according to Beverage Digest.
The news is bad for Coca-Cola Co. and its main rival, PepsiCo Inc., which together control about 70 percent of the u.s. market for soft drinks with higher margins. Between 2000 and 2014, the per capita consumption of bottled water more than doubled in the country, to 128.8 liters a year, while the per capita consumption of soft drinks fell from 201.3 liters to 151.1 liters, according to Beverage Marketing.
There are now hundreds of brands competing in a market that didn't exist just a few years ago, letting the flies the troughs of the halls and parks.
In fact, the Coke and Pepsi together have about 20% of the bottled water market. The flagship brand of Coke's Dasani and Pepsi, Aquafina. But they would rather be selling soft drinks. During the past ten years, according to Beverage Marketing, the price of a liter of water at Costco fell from $ 0.43 to $ 0.32, while the liter of soda has increased from $ 0.81 to $ 1,07. Sales of bottled water in retail amounted to $ 18,82 billion in 2014, up from $ 36,87 billion for soft drinks, estimates the market research firm Euromonitor.
Environmental issues challenge the product in some regions of the United States. At least 18 national parks, including the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore, banned the sale of bottled water. The product is bad in many universities, and in may, protesters demanded that Nestlé stop to collect water from the reservoirs of California, which is being plagued by a severe drought. Starbucks Corp. stopped using water from California in your brand Ethos, but Nestlé, no.
The water, however, is so trendy that the majority of consumers to buy even with the environmental drawbacks. Meanwhile, dozens of small special water brands geared toward high-income range and with names like Real Water, People Water and HappyWater began to flood the market. They are financed by investors of all types who try to obtain higher margins with new designs, exotic minerals and elaborate stories about the origin of the product.
The Eternal brand label is facing inside the bottle so that consumers can see through the water, filtered by the minerals calcite, quartzite and sandstone of the Allegheny Mountains. Karma cover Wellness Water injects seven vitamins in the water when you're ready to drink it. Other "startups" launched birch, water board and cacti. Private equity firms Castanea Partners and First Beverage Ventures, a unit of the First Beverage Group, California, bought shares in alkaline water Essentia. The Verlinvest, investment fund of the main Belgian shareholders brewery Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, have invested in the Hint, a flavored water so popular at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., that the Hint holds own refrigerators there.
The water war is just getting started. Bottled water brands spent $ 84,5 million in advertising in 2014. It is still far less than the $ 650,6 million spent with soft drink advertising, Kantar Media estimates. But the Fiji Water, which belongs to the venture capital firm closed Roll globally, plans to invest this year alone, $ 30 million in its first television campaign in the United States.
Coke has launched a new campaign in which the actress Jennifer Aniston praises its Smartwater steam distilled and enriched with electrolytes. PepsiCo, in turn, made propaganda of Aquafina in this year for the first time since 2008.
Part of this interest may have been spurred by a study of 2013, funded by the industry, which has assigned various illnesses to tap water. But much of the interest comes from a new consumer obsession: hydration. In December, a survey by Mintel revealed that 29% of respondents "felt weird" if they weren't always a bottle of water with them. This helped Moisturize Inc., a startup of students at the University of Minnesota, picking up this year more than $ 600,000 through collective financing on the website Kickstarter, money used to develop a bottle that monitors how much water the drink and user alerts for your smartphone.
In Brazil, the per capita consumption of bottled water grew at a compound annual rate of 11.7 percent between 2008 and 2014, reaching 69 liters last year, up from 35.5 litres in 2008, according to the Brazilian Association of the industry of Mineral Waters (Abinam). The estimated production of bottled water in 2014 was nearly 14 billion liters, more than double the registered in 2008, according to the Association.
Even well below the u.s. consumption, Brazil is the world's fourth-largest market for bottled water, according to the National Department of Mineral production of Brazil. (Eduardo Collaborated Magossi.)