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Consumers are switching to water as they avoid sugary beverages
- joezydeco 10y agoLow margin? My wife switched to La Croix which seems to be the new popular water drink around here. It's easily 3x the price of Coke.
- wavesounds 10y agoUh where are you buying your La Croix? They are the same price on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Croix-Naturally-Essenced-Sparkling-Variety/dp/B00851GRW6 https://www.amazon.com/Croix-Naturally-Essenced-Sparkling-Va... https://www.amazon.com/Coca-Cola-24-12-Fl-Cans/dp/B0012QO8AY/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1473265269&sr=1-1&keywords=coca-cola https://www.amazon.com/Coca-Cola-24-12-Fl-Cans/dp/B0012QO8AY... Edit: As people pointed out Amazon has shitty prices on these things. Still in my experience La Croix is about the same price as Coke when you compare them both on sale or both not on sale.
- joezydeco 10y agoWell, I'm certainly not buying it from here. $21 for a case of Coke? When they're on sale I can find cans of La Croix Grapefruit 12oz for about $4/8pk ($0.50/can). And I just bought Coke 12oz cans on sale for $2.25/12pk ($0.1875/can).
- TylerE 10y agoYeah, that's a pretty horrible price. Usually at least one of the local pharmacy or gas stations will be running a special on coke along the lines of 3x 12pk for $12 or so. Even at full retail a 12er is usually something like $6.99
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoApart from signalling that you have too much money and don't give a crap about the environment, why would anyone drinking just water buy bottled water every day instead of a Camelbak or Nalgene or Bobble bottle once a decade, and then drink tap water? Or even a Bkr if you're very fashion conscious? Is US water quality really that bad? Edit: and if you need sparkling water, why not get a Sodastream or equivalent?
- TylerE 10y agoYeah, in many places, it's pretty bad.
- AlexandrB 10y agoI love that the American solution is not to try to bring the municipal water up to standard but to spend 10x-100x on bottled water.
- rbjorklin 10y agoThe government is evil and companies can do no wrong ;)
- phil21 10y agoIt's already up to standard, people are largely just not rational. My home city ranks near the top of any "best tasting drinking water" poll I've seen, and people still complain and buy bottled water. It's ridiculous. The vast majority of citizens in the US are served by perfectly serviceable potable water they just turn their noses up at it.
- TylerE 10y agoThe standards regulate things that will actually hurt you, not things that will make the taste go off.
- djloche 10y agoThe reason is that you can buy a case of clean bottled water for ~$1-2, providing you clean, good tasting drinking water for a month. This is something even people at or below poverty level income can afford and dramatically increases quality of life. The individual has little to no control over the water or pipes that runs the water to their home. It is a take it or leave it situation. If you own your home, then you might be able to install a water filtration system. This might be at the very least $200+. Okay. That doesn't compete with the price of bottled water. What about just a water filter pitcher? $30+. Well, now that's far more reasonable, but still represents 20-30 cases of water. Bottled water IS the cheap, easy option. Should people fight and vote for infrastructure improvements so that they have clean, good tasting water? absolutely. But while we're working on that, we'll drink bottled water.
- koenigdavidmj 10y agoConsider getting a carbonator (such as the Sodastream) and whatever she wants for her own flavoring. The occasional CO_2 cartridge and squeezing out a slice of lime is likely cheaper.
- joezydeco 10y agoMy point was merely to highlight the fact that the newer sparkling water drinks were priced equal to or higher than the HFCS-based sodas. And the sparkling water drinks have even less ingredients than the HFCS ones. My intent was not to spark a class war over water quality, Nalgene bottles, and SodaStreams. I'm fully aware of the cost differentials and am not complaining.
- neaanopri 10y agoI fail to see the problem with this.
- webkike 10y agoI don't think the article is implying there is one for anyone but soda makers.
- bluedino 10y agoRestaurants have to be mad about this.
- mcintyre1994 10y agoIn the UK tap water is free anywhere they serve alcohol, so yup.
- calgoo 10y agoYou can get free tap water at mostly any restaurant in Sweden. Most will give it without you being a customer, and its really good. Its one of the things I miss living in Spain, where the water is horrible (at least here in Barcelona, im sure there is good water in the mountains).
- wccrawford 10y agoMost restaurants in the US have free water, too. The few exceptions I've seen are touristy places, super fancy places, and places that have really, really bad tap water.
- Practicality 10y agoLet them eat cake! (With all the leftover sugar)
- evan_ 10y agoMost nicer restaurants will offer you bottled water if you ask for water. Sometimes they won't even offer tap and you have to specifically request it, and the waiter will roll their eyes at you. (I've only seen that once, but still)
- bluedino 10y agoIt would have to be a pretty fancy place in the US to offer fancy water, that they charge for by the bottle. But most of your places will give you water for free, and the waiter will roll his/her eyes because at $2.50 a person, a table of four that only gets water just knocked $10 off their bill and 2-3 dollars off the tip.
- hannob 10y agoGood news. Now they should switch to tap water and it'll also be a win for the environment. (To anticipate answers: Yes, I know, in the US water often contains large amounts of chlorine and doesn't taste that good. And in poorer countries tap water is often undrinkable. But there's no good reason to buy bottled water if your water supply is reasonable, which is true for large parts of europe at least.)
- Grishnakh 10y agoTap water is crap. It tastes bad, it has chlorine in it, and sometimes the treatment plant screws up and it becomes contaminated. Anyone in Flint, MI will tell you that advocating tap water is a terrible idea. Reverse-osmosis treated water is almost dirt cheap. I get mine from the local Walmart, in heavy-duty refillable 3 or 5-gallon jugs. It costs me $0.37 per gallon to refill one of my jugs. At that price, there's no reason to suffer with tap water, for either drinking or cooking. I recommend the 3-gallon jugs though; it's easier to carry them and to pour them into smaller 1-gallon jugs or water bottles at home.
- Practicality 10y ago"there's no good reason to buy bottled water if your water supply is reasonable" You pretty much explained why many of us drink bottled water, since our supply is not reasonable. :)
- arzt 10y agoHow is water lower margin than a sugar drink that has ingredients and is partly water? At my corner bodega they charge $2 for a 20oz Dasani (which is the same price as a comparably sized gatorade).
- k-mcgrady 10y agoPeople aren't willing to pay as much for it? In my experience bottled water is about 40-50% cheaper to buy (small bottles). When it comes to large bottles (2lt) it can be up to 90% cheaper. I can buy 6x2lt bottles of water for £2 in the UK (probably less if I shopped around).
- guelo 10y agoHere's a comparison on Amazon. Branded water is $.02/oz and branded soda is $.03/oz, https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Life-Purified-16-9-ounce-plastic/dp/B00NP79AI8 https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Life-Purified-16-9-ounce-plastic... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HZYDW5E/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HZYDW5E/
- mtgx 10y agoFYI, Coke's Dasani, and PepsiCo's AquaFina are both just tap water.
- maxerickson 10y agoThey both use reverse osmosis to filter the water, they could be locally bottled and end up tasting quite different than the tap water.
- makecheck 10y agoWater itself is a good trend. The bottle, not so much. For me anyway, if I drink from the bottle then I feel odd afterwards — as if I got a dose of something I shouldn’t have. Fortunately, pouring the water into a glass solves the problem. I try to avoid bottled water anyway. Part of it is the principle of the thing: I used to get water for free when I was 12 and these days it averages $3 or $4? To hell with those companies, they know it’s a ridiculous scam and people just pay it. I would say most of the time I drink filtered water from my fridge, occasionally from the tap and rarely from water bottles. If I do have bottled water, it is only after searching in vain for a simple drinking fountain.
- internaut 10y agoTip for the frugal: if you go to catering wholesalers you can pick up bottled water still or sparkling for 0.10c - 0.20c each. It's a good way to reduce a waistline.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y agoThe soda companies will be just fine. They've been preparing for this for decades. Who do you think owns the bottled water companies? Hint: Dasani is owned by the Coca-Cola Company. Aquafina is owned by PepsiCo. They're only at risk if people inexplicably stop drinking regular bottled water and subsist solely upon San Pellegrino or other sparkling varieties.
- yazaddaruvala 10y agoFWIW: The article did address this. It claims that bottled water sales are low margin. Therefore, not equivalent to soda sales.
- maxxxxx 10y agoGood for the producers. Fancy bottled water is much more expensive than Soda so they can make more money on a product that's easier to produce.
- WalterBright 10y agoThe trouble with bottled water is that the minerals are often filtered out. Water is the only way we get certain needed minerals.
- intralizee 10y agoI have a water distiller which I fill up with tap water and it takes 6 hours to produce a gallon by evaporating the water that then goes through a filter. Cost me around $200 and I get to see the remaining contents from the tap water at the bottom of the distiller. I believe it uses 20 cents of energy to produce a gallon. It's cheaper than bottled water and more environmentally friendly (no plastic). Some will say, I miss out on minerals from the water but I believe that my diet covers them.
- bordercases 10y agoEven if water ends up being turned into a market good, what with bottling; does this affect the water service as a public good at all?
- gumby 10y agoBTW your kids should be drinking tap water unless you fluoridate their teeth some other way. Or, I suppose, unless you think fluoridating teeth is a bad idea...