Bottled Waters in France, Switzerland, and Serbia and Montenegro

Bottled Waters in France, Switzerland, and Serbia and Montenegro

Water is a basic necessity for life on earth; it composes up to 60% of an adult's body, while an infant's body consists of up to 75% of water. Our muscles need water to the work and our kidneys use it to filter the impurities in our blood; it is essential to drink enough water in order to remain healthy. A loss of 3% of total body water will cause fatigue and 10% is seriously life threatening. Every day, we eliminate in average about 2.5 litres of water through the processes of urination, perspiration and breathing. The food and drinks that we consume daily, like milk, fruits, meat, vegetables, and fish, accumulate to about a litre of water daily. Therefore it is necessary to absorb 1.5 litres of water in some other form of liquid. Should we be concerned about the water that we drink? In many countries the tap water is not really advisable to drink (except for some parts of Germany and Switzerland, where the tap water regulations are actually stricter than of the bottled waters). The answer to the question should be positive, and for that reason I have chosen to explore on one of the ten biggest industries in the world, beverage industry, and its segment of the bottled waters.

Our tastes and preferences have allowed the industry of bottled waters to expand, which gave an opportunity for many companies to evolve. However, very few of these companies have managed to sell their waters efficiently worldwide. Some of them certainly are Danone Group, Nestle Waters, Coca Cola, and PepsiCo. Many people would argue that water is water, and that it can not differ much from one to another. The truth is that different bottled waters differ in taste and in their particular characteristics because of the minerals and chemicals that they pick up in their passage through the ground towards the spring. Are the ingredients of the bottled waters so important that the sales and our preferences exclusively depend on them? No, it is the "image" that companies develop for them, which makes them more consumer-attractive, and believe it or not most of the companies project the same image of: cleanliness, purity and health. Therefore it would be interesting to compare three different companies and their strategies on three different markets, in order to see why some of them do better and others worse. For that reason I chose to research on Danone Group, Nestle Waters, and Knjaz Milos and their production segment of bottled waters.

To commence with Danone Group, the global leader in production and sales of bottled waters. Danone's genesis goes back to the 25th of February 1966, when two glass companies, the Souchon-Neuvesel glassworks and Glaces de Boussois, merged together. One of them, Glaces de Boussois, from the Lyon region, produced bottles, industrial containers, flacons and table glassware (container glass), while the second, the Souchon-Neuvesel glassworks, positioned in northern France, made windows for the building and automobile industries (plate glass). The reason why the companies merged was simple: they had to cope with the evolving market and produce something new in order to go along with the new market trends of "no-deposit, no-return" bottles, and therefore stay in the business. Antoine Riboud was the first chairman of new company called Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel - BSN - which had an annual turnover of 1 billion francs.

The French glass industry giant, Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel, in January 1969 acquired company called Saint-Gobain, and took control of Evian. The reason was logical and straightforward: if BSN manufactures bottles it should try to bottle them with something consumer attractive like Evian, and Volvic waters. In 1973 BSN and Gervais Danone merged and became the biggest food company in France, which expanded rapidly in Europe. It was only in the year 1994 that BSN Gervais DANONE changed its name to The "Groupe DANONE", because the company managers knew it lacked a powerful, modern, and evocative name that would make their products more attractive to the customers.

As a big company Danone is the owner of many brands of bottled water, and some of them that are well-known in Europe are certainly: Evian, Volvic, Badoit, Activ', Ferrarelle, and Vitalinea/Vitasnella/Taillefine. The company gained its strong position because of the widespread international involvement. It is especially doing well in Western Europe and Asia-Pacific. In 2002 the company had a 4.7% of the world's market share in beverage industry, which was largely due to the bottled waters segment . Western Europe was the second largest market for Danone, and again as a result of company's strong position in bottled waters. Within Western Europe, Danone's major market is in France. They achieved market growth in the French region attributable to the success of their new product launches such as calcium-enriched Danone Activ', "a premium positioned water that contains added calcium and is marketed as a functional, healthy product" , Taillefine, a low calorie water, and also Salvetat, fruit flavoured sparkling water. Danone gives attention to health and vitality, but at the same time they want to add the eating pleasure and nutritional needs to their products. In other words Danone is trying to be known and for its quality products. In order to achieve that the company needs to invest a lot in marketing research, in other words understanding and satisfying consumer's expectations. Danone has two leading brands are Evian and Volvic.

Evian is bottled in the town of Evian Ð'- les Bains, close to Lake Geneva. It was discovered by the French Marquis de Lessert in 1789, during the French Revolution; the Marquis himself believed that this water cured his ailments. The first bottling authorization was granted by the Dukes of Savoie in 1826, and later on by the French Ministry of Health in 1878. The production of this water is untouched by man. The water from the spring comes from "every drop of rain and flake of snow that falls on the French Alps" of the Rhone Glacier. Some 16 000 years B.C. the Glacier formed a natural aquifer that filters the water and gives it such a distinguished taste. It takes at least 15 years for the same drops of rain and flakes of snow to get purified and filtered by that aquifer. Then the fifteen years old water trickles down to Evian Ð'-les Bains, where it is tested for more than hundreds of times before it gets bottled.

On the other hand Volvic is a natural mineral water that originates from the source in Clairvic, France. It "filters through layers of volcanic rocks. This natural filtration and unique composition gained are what enables Volvic to fill you with volcanicity. " The first bottling authorization