The Thirst for
Bottled Water
Summary:
You’d be hard pressed to turn on a TV, flip through a newspaper or drive down
the street without seeing a bottled water advertisement. With special claims
made by those trying to one-up competitors, it’s no longer just water. But what
makes certain waters different? The following helps to distinguish how bottled
water is classified.
Bottled water continues to
surge as a healthy product of choice among consumers looking to quench their
thirst. Globally, sales have increased a whopping 17.8 percent over the past
year. In
While consumers are fickle,
the popularity and increased demand for bottled water continues to grow as
people desire better quality and consistency and are willing to pay for the
product. But what exactly are consumers buying inside those plastic containers
and what are beverage producers doing to maintain a safe, consistent product
flowing to thirsty customers?
Not all waters are equal
Within the non-carbonated
bottled water market there are two primary products—spring water and purified
water. These two products account for the majority of the industry’s sales and
consumption. Also included in the market are artesian, drinking, mineral and
well waters that are also bottled and sold but only represent a small sales
percentage.
So the question now is,
“With so many types of water out on the shelves, how does one know exactly what
he/ she is getting?” Fortunately for the
While the FDA does a good
job of monitoring the label content, the average consumer is generally unaware
of what’s in the bottle. To help define the types of bottled water on the
market, the FDA has defined the following types:
Artesian water: Water from a well that taps a
confined aquifer (a water-bearing underground layer of rock or sand) in which
the water level stands at some height above the top of the aquifer.
Drinking water: Water that’s sold for human
consumption in sanitary containers and contains no added sweeteners or chemical
additives. It may be rebottled tap water treated at a municipal source and
retreated by simple filtration.
Mineral water: It’s distinguished by a constant
level and relative proportion of minerals and trace elements (not less than 250
parts per million, ppm, of total dissolved solids,
TDS). These minerals and elements must occur naturally from the water sources
and cannot be added at the time of bottling.
Purified water: Water that has been produced by
distillation, deionization, reverse osmosis (RO) or
another process and meets the definition of purified water in the US
Pharmacopoeia (USP) 23.
Spring water: Water derived from an underground
source from which water flows naturally to the surface of the Earth. Spring
water must be collected only at the spring or through a borehole tapping the
underground spring. Spring water can be collected with an external force, but
must be from the same underground stratum as the spring and must have all the
physical properties, composition and quality before treatment.
Closely watched
Beyond verifying that
contents match the label, bottled water is one of the most closely regulated
food products under FDA jurisdiction. Provisions from the FDA’s general food
Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) regulations and a set of bottled
water-specific GMP regulations—which include requirements for plant and
equipment design and construction, sanitary facilities and operations for
production and process controls—all apply to bottled water products.
The FDA also sets quality
standards that include established regulations for allowable substance levels
such as coliform and lead. Additionally, maximum
acceptable levels for microbiological quality; physical quality such as
turbidity, color and odor; chemical quality; limiting organic and inorganic
chemicals; and radiological limits are established.
Details and requirements
for each of the water types can be found in the FDA Code of Federal Regulations
(CFR) Title 21, parts 103, 129, 165 and 184.
Generally, state-level
regulations vary but each conduct specific inspections of bottled water sources
and facilities to ensure both the source and the production line’s end product
are safe for consumers.
The International Bottled
Water Association (IBWA), whose member companies (US and international
bottlers, distributors and suppliers) distribute 80 percent of the bottled
water sold in the United States, have also set standards that are stricter than
the FDA’s. These include annual, unannounced plant inspection by nationally
recognized third-party organizations such as NSF International. Details—and
differences with other standards—and can be found in the IBWA Model Code (www.bottledwater.org/public/model_
main.htm)
Clearly, there’s more to
producing bottled water than opening the valve, filling the bottle and capping
it. When a bottler decides to add a water product to its line, there are a
number of factors that go into deciding what product it should make and how to
proceed. The two primary considerations are the water source and what equipment
is necessary to produce it.
Quality vs. quantity
The source plays a pivotal
role in the bottler’s ability to produce the desired quantity and quality of
bottled water, and maintain production over time while remaining profitable.
Nearly 25 percent of all bottled water comes from municipal sources while the
remainder comes from natural sources such as springs and wells. Regardless of
the source, the water must be inspected, tested and certified by the state or
country of origin. The water must be of sanitary quality in order to begin and
continue bottling from the same source.
Aside from the quantity of
available water, amounts of organics and inorganics
present as well as the quantity of TDS help determine if the source is
practical.
Equipment requirements
Every consumer expects to
obtain a product free from color, taste and odor. Color is primarily attributed
to organic materials in the water, although metal ions may also taint the
water. The human nose can detect odors down to the parts per billion level. Activated carbon will adsorb odors and many dissolved
organics that give color to drinking water as well as eliminate chlorine and
other halogens that can affect taste and odor. Membrane filtration can remove
organic impurities, metal and other ions. Ozone can break down organic
constituents and reduce their odor potential while also sanitizing to minimize
further microbial contamination. Care must be exercised to assure that steps
are taken to reduce bromate formation,
however, for sources containing the organic bromide ion can be inconsistent.
After the source is
determined to be acceptable, the bottler’s next step is to conduct an audit of
existing plant equipment and design to determine what must be done to get the
plant up and producing bottled water. A brief checklist of first steps for
determining existing capabilities includes:
1. Checking the original
design flow rate to determine the plant’s current bottling capacity and ability
to expand future bottling capacity;
2. Determining the actual
flow rate available from the source and accounting for possible changes in
seasonal quantity and quality, while determining what the future flow rate
might be based on population and usage trends;
3. Determining the plant’s
water usage requirements, and
4. Assessing removal
efficiencies and disinfection capabilities of
existing equipment.
Depending on the type of water
the bottler decides to produce, many of the plant’s existing devices for
filtration and disinfection can be integrated into
the design of the plant’s bottled water production line.
The two biggest sellers on
the market are spring water and purified water. While these two products are
generally viewed as high quality, they differ significantly in the treatment
required to obtain the end product.
Spring water
The FDA holds bottled
spring water to all of its bottled water quality and labeling requirements. A
challenge for spring water bottlers is that the water source must be an actual
spring that can supply and sustain the required water quantity and is located
close enough to the bottling facility to make it economically feasible to
produce.
A typical spring water
treatment process includes a filtration system that generally runs in
series—5-micron filtration to 0.2-micron filtration. Spring water has no set
standards for TDS, so inconsistencies may exist in the quantity of TDS and
amounts of calcium, chlo-ride, CO
2, sulfate and pH range.
After filtration, spring
water is usually treated with ozone to disinfect and preserve the water in the
bottle. By maintaining the nature of the spring water, ozone is considered to
be an acceptable disinfectant. Ozone oxidizes bacteria and organic materials
and, over time, reverts back to oxygen.
Purified water
Purified water is the most
highly treated and closely regulated bottled water product, but offers the most
consistent and highest quality water to the consumer. Bottlers of purified
water find that consumers choose purified water due to the flavor consistency
that’s made possible by the purification process. Likewise, the ability to
offer a consistent, high quality product has helped spur consumer demand.
Purified water currently
must meet the requirements set forth in the USP requirement for purified water
under supplement 23 as issued in January 1995. There are three primary
processes used to produce purified water: deionization, distillation and RO. Today,
bottlers may choose RO over the others due to many inherent advantages offered
and more recent measures implemented by membrane manufacturers to improve
performance and reduce cost.
A typical RO system for
purified water is portrayed in Figure 1.
Conclusion
The growing demand for
bottled water is likely to continue in the
References
1. Information Resources
Inc., “Total Food, Drug and Mass Merchandising,” survey for 52 weeks ended
2. International Bottled
Water Association (IBWA), website, September 2001: http:// www.bottledwater.org
3. Food and Drug
Administration, “Laws Enforced by the FDA and Related Statutes,” website:
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/ laws/lawtoc.htm & Pure Water Handbook, 2nd
Edition, Osmonics,