The new must-have accessory is a bottle of water - for the car, the jogging trail, the classroom or office, the pool or the beach.
Whether for its presumed fresher taste, its upscale, health-conscious image or simple convenience, bottled water is making big waves in the beverage business. Americans are happily paying good money for something that was once free and freely taken for granted, creating a multibillion-dollar market for bottled water.
And purveyors are asking, if consumers clamor to pay for it, why shouldn't there be more shelf space devoted to pricey H2O?
Two giants of the beverage business, PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola Co., have discovered that profits from bottled water can benefit the bottom line.
According to The Wall Street Journal, both companies see bottled water as their single biggest growth opportunity. No wonder: Bottled-water sales grew by 30 percent in the United States last year, compared to a mere 0.6 percent growth for soft drinks. Consumers have made Pepsi's Aquafina and Coke's Dasani the leading bottled water brands in the country, despite the fact that both products are basically purified tap water.
Actually, much of the water sold in bottles around the world comes not from pristine springs but straight from municipal water supplies, according to a study released last year by the World Wildlife Fund. That doesn't mean Aquafina or Dasani or the others will taste like the water from your kitchen tap. The water is treated to remove "impurities" that can affect the flavor.
It is the taste, especially the consistency of its taste, that makes bottled water appealing to many consumers, according to the International Bottled Water Association, an Alexandria, Va.-based group that represents more than 1,200 American and international bottlers, distributors and suppliers of bottled water.
But there are other reasons for bottled water's appeal. One is the role image plays in any retail product. Consumers also are opting for bottled water because of health concerns, pointing to occasional stories about water contamination or, after Sept. 11, worries about sabotage to municipal water supplies.
By and large, U.S. drinking water is among the safest in the world. But the IBWA notes that bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as a food product and must meet the appropriate food packaging regulations, while tap water is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is treated as a public utility.
