Nestle Waters' Hit and Miss - A blog by Christine Arena
Christine Arena is the author of The High-Purpose Company - The Truly Responsible (and Highly Profitable) Firms that are Changing Business Now. Like what you just read? Get your daily dose of corporate insights at www.christinearena.com.
There is a great deal at stake in the bottled water business. Perhaps Nestlé Waters North America knows this better than anybody. The company presently controls approximately 41 percent of the $11.7 billion US bottled water market. Like every other competitor in the space, it faces shrinking category sales, as well as mounting pressure from groups complaining about the toll that water corporations take on the planet.
Bottled water activists point to plastic waste, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, the environmental effects of water extraction, water privatization issues and a range of social problems generated by the industry. Could such “road blocks” deter long-term growth for corporate bottled water empires? Nestlé thinks not.
According to a 2009 document entitled “The Future of Bottled Water” authored by Nestlé CEO Kim Jeffery, the company’s broad portfolio of bottled water products, including Poland Spring, Perrier, Arrowhead, Deer Park and Zephyrhills, are well-positioned to recover from the present economic slump. “Bottled water is perfect as it is,” the company says. “[There are] limited opportunities to innovate.”
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