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