France’s billion-euro mineral water industry finds itself in the spotlight due to climate change and increasing concerns about the sector’s environmental footprint. Under scrutiny is whether certain globally renowned brands, most notably the legendary Perrier brand, can even continue to describe themselves as “natural mineral water.”.
A ruling in the Perrier case is to be made in the next few months. It comes after exposés in the French press about illegal filtration systems that have been an industry-wide practice, supposedly owing to concerns over water pollution, following decades of drought due to climate change.
This is our Water-gate,” declares Stéphane Mandard, who has conducted investigations at Le Monde newspaper. “It’s an industrial fraud and state collusion. And now there is a genuine Sword of Damocles over the head of Perrier.”
It’s a model that “has worked very well commercially for the big producers,” according to hydrologist Emma Haziza. “But it is completely not sustainable in a period of global climate change. When you’ve got major brands feeling they have no alternative but to treat their water – that means they recognise there’s a quality issue.”
The story hit the headlines a year ago in France after an investigation by Le Monde and Radio France revealed that at least a third of mineral water sold in France had been illegally treated, either with ultra-violet light, carbon filters, or ultra-fine micro-meshes commonly used to screen out bacteria.
The issue was not one of public health. The treated water was, by definition, safe to drink. The issue was that according to EU law, “natural mineral water”, – which commands a vast premium over ordinary tap water – should remain unchanged from the underground source to the bottle. That is the essence of it.
If such brands as Evian, Vichy and Perrier have been so successful in France and internationally, it is due to an enticing image of mountain-sides, flowing streams, purity and health-promoting minerals. Own up to filtering the water, and the industry jeopardises breaking the market spell. Consumers may start to wonder what they’d been paying for.
Compounding the problem for Perrier and its corporate parent, Nestlé – and President Emmanuel Macron’s administration – is the accusation that executives and ministers hatched a conspiracy to silence the scandal, suppressed contamination reports, and re-drafted the regulations so Perrier could continue with micro-filtration.
During their investigations, Le Monde and Radio France accused the government of having deemed the mineral water industry so strategic as to have agreed to cover up harmful facts. A senate investigation into the scandal charged the government with a “deliberate strategy” of “dissimulation.”.
In response to the accusations, the government has requested the European Commission to decide on what degree of micro-filtration is acceptable for “natural mineral water”. Aurelien Rousseau, then secretary-general of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne’s cabinet, acknowledged there had been an “error of appreciation” but maintained that there was never a risk to public health.
Earlier in the year, during the Senate inquiry into the industry, Nestlé CEO Laurent Freixe confessed that Perrier had employed illegal processes to treat its water. But he had a second confession: that an official report by hydrologists into the company’s ancient site in the Gard department of southern France had advised against the grant of “natural mineral water” status on the company’s production.
It brings up the possibility that for the first time in its 160-year life, Perrier water soon won’t bear the label of being what folks think it is. As per the hydrologist Emma Haziza, “the connection to global warming and climate change is established”. And if Perrier is experiencing the effects before others are, it is likely because its geographical positioning isolates it.
Nothing like the isolated mountain scenery you may have in mind, Perrier’s water is drawn from deep aquifers in the coastal plain between Montpellier and Nîmes, an easy drive from the Mediterranean. The region is densely populated, intensively farmed, and very hot.
“There has been a huge climatic change since 2017,” says Haziza. “There was a string of five years with a series of droughts, which were especially badly experienced in the south.”
