Sludge Watch ==> Bottled water news

[Maureen Reilly]

http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070803/NEWS/
708030307&SearchID=73289142989818

Homegrown bubbly

CALISTOGA: Water company's plan to launch new products, stress 'bottled
at the source' expected to triple sales
By CAROL BENFELL
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

  Calistoga Beverage Co., which has been selling bottled mineral water
for more than 80 years, has launched a line of new products and a
marketing campaign designed to triple its sales in the next three
years.

  The Napa Valley company has retired its familiar green-labeled bottles
of spring water, some of which originated at the Livermore Ranch in
Lake County. Instead the company is expanding its line of mineral water
products, sprucing up the labeling and packaging, and promoting them
with an aggressive Northern California marketing campaign.

"Mineral water is where our heritage is, and we felt we had an
opportunity to make ourselves just a mineral water brand," said Andy
Hill, Calistoga's senior brand manager.

Calistoga Beverage's mineral waters are bottled in the town of
Calistoga. The 275,000-square-foot factory draws the mineral water from
a capped geyser on its Silverado Trail property.

Calistoga is owned by Nestlé Waters North America Inc. The Greenwich,
Conn., corporation is the nation's largest bottled water company with
32 percent of the U.S. market, according to Beverage Marketing Corp., a
consulting company for the beverage industry.

Calistoga, which employs 119 people, is one of the smallest bottled
water brands, with 0.1 percent of the U.S. market, said John Sicher,
publisher of Beverage Digest. It rang up $9.6 million in revenues last
year, according to Beverage Marketing, which tracks shipments to
wholesalers.

The Calistoga brand languished after Nestlé moved management for all
its bottled waters back to its Connecticut headquarters in 2000.

But Nestlé has realized that Calistoga has a strong local following and
that its "bottled at the source" logo makes it distinctive, Hill said.

"It's the whole strategy of mineral water at the source," Hill said.
"Seven years ago, they decided smaller regional brands weren't a
priority. Now the company is realizing we have a fantastic brand
consumers love."

Nestlé's decision to revitalize the Calistoga brand comes as consumer
groups are pressuring bottled water companies to list the sources of
their water on their labels.

PepsiCo has agreed to state that its Aquafina brand, the nation's
top-selling brand of bottled water, is basically purified tap water.
Coca-Cola has said its label already makes clear that Dasani, the No. 2
seller, is purified tap water, filtered by reverse osmosis and enhanced
with minerals.

Nestlé is relabeling its Pure Life brand water, which it says is the
only one of its brands that draws water from public water supplies.
Nestlé sells 12 brands of bottled water in the United States and 72
brands worldwide.

That controversy had nothing to do with the decision to revisit the
Calistoga brand, Hill said. Sicher said there was nothing unusual in
this kind of product retooling.

"Consumer brands do that all the time. You see it with everything from
colas to automobiles," Sicher said. "Companies are always refreshening
and in some case relaunching brands."

Revamping the Calistoga brand is expected to help the company triple
its sales by 2010, Calistoga officials said.

The changes were set in motion two years ago, when Nestlé sent Chris
Canning to Calistoga to run the company as its director. Hill followed
last year to help implement a "Return to Good" campaign to invigorate
sales of existing products and launch new ones.

"Our roots reach back to times when food was really simple, with no
overengineering. The 'Return to Good' campaign represents just that,"
Canning said. "It is a call to action for consumers who thirst for
all-natural products and who actively participate in making their
communities a better place to live."

The campaign includes expanding Calistoga's distribution to
delicatessens, specialty stores and restaurants and erecting hundreds
of billboards across the Bay Area, Hill said.

Calistoga -- the largest employer in the town of Calistoga -- is also
taking an active part in civic life again. Hill and Canning are
participating in local business groups and Hill speaks to school groups
about careers in marketing.

"Our whole thing is about being back, being a local brand and bringing
the resources back to Calistoga," Hill said.

Calistoga has already added a new product -- plain mineral water, which
is like sparkling mineral water but without the carbon dioxide fizz.

It is also adding a mandarin orange essence flavor to its line of
flavored sparkling mineral waters. In August, Calistoga will roll out a
line of organic sparkling juice beverages.

All of the products will be bottled at Calistoga except for the juice
line, which will be bottled in Healdsburg. Hill declined to disclose
the location of the Healdsburg plant.

"It's very small," he said.

Bottled water in the United States is an $11 billion-a-year wholesale
business, dominated by Nestlé, according to Beverage Marketing.

The bottled water industry is growing about 10 percent a year, while
sales of soft drinks are slowing slightly, according to industry
figures.

The first bottling line for mineral water from the Calistoga hot
springs was built in 1924 by Giuseppe Musante, a soda fountain
operator.

Businessman Elwood Springer bought the small bottling plant in the
1970s and launched the Calistoga Mineral Water Co. In 1980, the company
was sold to Nestlé.

You can reach Staff Writer Carol Benfell at 521-5259 or
carol.benfell at pressdemocrat.com.


On Aug 3, 2007, at 6:52 AM, Zoe Maggio wrote:

>
>Dear water justice activists,
>  Below is an article from Newsweek, appearing yesterday, that describes  
>how the bottled water industry plans
>to respond to the growing movement against bottled water:
>  Environment: Bottled-Water Industry Fights Back
>The bottled-water industry has taken a knock over claims that its  product 
>is bad for the environment. Now it’s fighting back.
>WEB EXCLUSIVE
>By Dan McGinn
>Newsweek
>Updated: 1:45 p.m. ET Aug 2, 2007
>
>Aug. 2, 2007 - It’s been a tough summer for the bottled-water  industry. In 
>June, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, led by San  Francisco’s Gavin Newsom, 
>passed a resolution calling for a study of  the negative environmental 
>impact of bottled water and praising the  high quality of municipal tap 
>water. In July, under pressure from  environmental activists, Pepsico 
>announced it would begin adding  “source labels” to bottles of Aquafina, 
>making it clearer to consumers  that the stuff inside is merely tap water 
>that’s been subjected to  extra purification. And in the July issue of Fast 
>Company magazine,  award-winning writer Charles Fishman penned a highly 
>critical story  about Americans’ $16 billion-a-year bottled-water habit, 
>which he  calls an “indulgence” in a world in which 1 billion people lack 
>access  to dependable water sources. “When a whole industry grows up around 
>  supplying us with something we don't need—when a whole industry is  built 
>on the packaging and the presentation—it's worth asking how that  happened, 
>and what the impact is,” Fishman writes.
>
>Now the bottled-water industry is fighting back. On Friday, NEWSWEEK  has 
>learned, The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle will  each 
>carry a full-page ad containing a message from the International  Bottled 
>Water Association. This week’s campaign will be the first  industrywide 
>advertising since 1999. In the ads, the industry pushes  the notion that 
>“calorie-free, refreshing water” is a healthy choice  in a country where 
>diabetes, obesity and heart disease afflict so many  people. But beyond 
>touting those healthy virtues, the ad also seeks to  subtly reframe the 
>debate. “Whether it comes from a faucet or a  bottle, drinking water is an 
>easy step people can take to lead a  healthier lifestyle,” the ad says.
>
>Much of this message is not new: the industry has spent years  promoting 
>the notion that Americans are better off drinking bottled  water than soda 
>or beer, and from a health standpoint, it’s hard to  argue with them. But 
>lately more people—like the U.S. mayors—are  comparing bottled water not to 
>Coke or Budweiser, but instead to the  free, clean stuff flowing out of 
>taps. Since bottled water requires  petroleum to create its containers, is 
>often trucked across the  country to supermarkets, and leaves millions of 
>plastic shells behind  in landfills after it’s guzzled, that’s a comparison 
>that’s  necessarily less flattering.
>
>The messaging in the new ads—hey, it’s all water, whether it’s from a  tap 
>or a bottle—represents the latest twist in the industry’s attempt  to 
>portray itself in better light. “It’s unfortunate that we’ve gotten  into 
>this situation where [people are] pitting tap water against  bottled 
>water,” IBWA president Joseph Doss told NEWSWEEK. “We don’t  disparage tap 
>water and we just think it’s a good thing if people are  drinking water.” 
>Three in four Americans, according to industry  research, drink both tap 
>and bottled water, depending on where they  are and what they feel like 
>drinking. Consumers shouldn’t look at  bottled versus tap as an either-or 
>proposition, the industry is  suggesting. Instead, they should look 
>favorably on both types of  water, and consider bottled water when tap 
>isn’t an option. “[A]s far  as we’re concerned, the drink in everyone’s 
>purse, backpack and lunch  box should be water,” the ad proclaims.
>
>Activists aren’t surprised by the industry’s counterpunch. “Certainly,  
>other industries that come under pressure roll out image advertising,”  
>says Patti Lynn, campaign director of Corporate Accountability  
>International, which has been trying to educate consumers about the  
>detriments of bottled water through an initiative it calls “Think  Outside 
>the Bottle.” And even as the new ads hit consumers’ doorsteps,  
>environmental advocates are still working hard on the issue. They’re  
>urging the industry’s two other big players, Coca-Cola and Nestlé, to  
>follow Pepsico’s lead and provide more information on their labels.  
>They’re also continuing calls for Aquafina to remove the mountain  images 
>from its label, which the group believes implies to consumer  that the 
>bottle contains mountain spring water.
>
>In the meantime, more cities are considering following the lead of San  
>Francisco, which has banned city employees from using tax dollars to  buy 
>bottled water to consume at work. For a crisp, cool drink, it  appears this 
>will continue to be a long, hot summer.
>
>URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20093192/site/newsweek/