Perrier sales by name “natural mineral water” should the drilling be suspended while Nestlé Waters obtains new permits to exploit its drilling? The Judicial Court of Nanterre made its decision this Tuesday, November 18, another change in the two-year soap opera.
“The judges had the opportunity to point out the obvious: water sold as natural mineral water must be… natural and authentically pure,” according to Marie-Amandine Stévenin, president of UFC-Que Choisir, who took the matter to court in the spring. The hearing took place at the end of September and a decision will be taken in electronic form this Tuesday.
The consumer association argued that the microfiltration used by the group on its water meant that it could no longer claim the designation “natural mineral water”, and ask a “marketing ban” And “fraud cessation”. His lawyer, Me Alexis Machetto, even said that there was “real risk to consumers”.
Nestlé Waters & Premium Beverages, which produces Perrier, Vittel, Contrex and Hépar waters in France, is competing “strickly” UFC request-What to choose, “particularly allegations that call into question the food safety of the product”.
“All our waters” can be consumed “in complete security”, has put the group in the middle of a scandal for two years after they admitted, in early 2024, under the influence of several press investigations, that they had used banned substances (coal, UV) for their water in the past.
Since then, such microfiltration has been replaced by 0.2 micron microfiltration, the legality of which is still debated, since natural mineral water cannot be disinfected or treated with the possibility of changing its characteristics, except to remove iron or manganese that are considered harmful.
The group claimed to be doing this as part of a transformation plan passed by the government in 2023. The government’s actions in this regard received sharp criticism from a commission of inquiry by senators at the start of the year.
Since then, health authorities estimated that this 0.2 micron microfiltration changed the microbiism of the water, prompting the group, under prefectural orders, to replace it with 0.45 micron microfiltration.
Although Nestlé Waters claims that this level of microfiltration has been validated by the authorities, it had to submit a new application for a prefectural permit to exploit its drilling and market it under the name of natural mineral water.
While the prefects have yet to make a decision, UFC-Que Choisir confirmed that marketing has now made a decision “misleading”.
Nestlé Waters denies this, emphasizing the stance of a “wide” communication campaigns in supermarkets and the press clearly show that Perrier, Contrex and Hépar waters “prone to” not being a natural mineral according to “analysis of the state of microfiltration”.
On the face of it, this campaign appears to have had no impact on sales. On a classic Perrier bottle, “the number of households purchasing remains stable”, the company emphasized, stating that they sold all of their production. Over the last quarter, with weather favoring water consumption, sales increased “even growing”.
On the other hand, Perrier’s production of blue bottles of fine bubbles has declined since drilling was halted at the start of the scandal, and the group acknowledged that sales automatically declined.
Another communications campaign has been launched in recent weeks, this time by Nestlé Waters’ French competitors gathered at the House of Natural Mineral Waters. “Natural mineral water designation has been obtained”, confirming the unity that unites Danone (Evian, Badoit, Salvetat, Volvic) and smaller players (Wattwiller, Mont-Roucous, Eau neuf, Bonneval).
For them, the regulations that Nestlé Waters requested clarification from were clear: “We share the same responsibility: protecting original purity. No medicating. No compromise.” This means that microfiltration of 0.45 microns is intended to remove iron or manganese, which is not the case for the filters used by Nestlé Waters in the context of the current authorization request.
