CULTURE
Water, Water Everywhere
By Scott Jacobs
There’s a great upheaval in the neighborhood this summer. Our grocery
store has been re-designed to become a Dominick’s Superstore, probably
in response to the decision by big box retailers like Target and Walmart to
carry non-perishable grocery items, but also because computer-based checkout
registers are yielding an ever more complex array of data on not only what
we buy, but how we shop.
When I enter my Dominick’s, as a result, a server greets me with an offer of a sample Green Tea Frappacino from the nearby Starbucks counter. Instead of running my cart up and down the aisles, I’m invited to stroll through a French market of flowers, fresh fruits, vegetables and delicatessen delights, then take a lap on the boulevard of high prices that circumnavigates the store.
For months, store employees have been re-arranging items on the shelves to achieve this new look. Canned goods, cereals, staples, and other low margin groceries are tucked into the center aisles so now, instead of meandering along the maze, I leave my cart and dart in and out to get what I need. One thing that has not changed (except for an expansion) is the liquor department’s exalted position at the end of my journey. Tired of shopping? Grab a six-pack and reward yourself for a job well done.
No, wait a minute. Don’t run to the liquor so fast because this week I discovered one last wrinkle in the plan: water. Rows and rows of bottled water, ranging in price from the store brand at a penny an ounce to imports from England and the Italian Alps that can cost up to 12 cents an ounce (about double the price of beer.)
Think about it. If you were buying this stuff from a pump at a gas station, it would be costing you $15 a gallon. You don’t have to do that though. You can, if you want, just turn on the tap and get all the water you want free. But who does that? Fewer and fewer of us.
Since 1980, the annual per capita consumption of bottled water in America has grown from 3 gallons a person to 26 gallons, a sizable enough jump to interest even the biggest food conglomerates. Perrier is credited with opening the American market to bottled water in the 1970’s and another European import, Evian, made water a supermarket staple in the 1990’s. To compete, Pepsi launched its Aquafina brand in 1997 and Coke quickly responded with a water called Dasani. They are now the #1 and #2 bestsellers in the country.
But the floodgates, so to speak, are now open to other competitors, not the least of which are the grocery chains themselves. Walt Boyes, a consultant in water treatment and distribution, recently told brandchannel.com that anybody with a $100,000 bottling machine can get in the business. “If a store can make its own water in its distribution center for 10 cents a bottle and sell it for $1.25 a bottle, they’ll make more money than if they are selling a name brand at a three percent margin.”
Since water is water, competing brands only have a few ways to differentiate themselves: namely the purity of the source, the shape of the bottle or the mythic history of the company. Dominick's makes only a feint at creating a brand by calling its generic product “Refreshe” with an extra e. But others have invested heavily in their image.
Paraviso Qvaszia, an Italian import that runs 7.9 cents/ounce, arrives from the Italian Alps near Lake Como in a pyramid-shaped bottle “visually pleasing on any table setting.” Jana’s Skinny Water (also 7.9 cents/ounce) doesn’t have much of a bottle to look at, but it is said to come from artesian wells in a little town in Croatia -- and is enhanced with a diet-suppressant they call CitriMax. TAU and Ty Nant (both 11 cents/ounce) also have spectacular bottles and water from Bethania, Wales, in the United Kingdom.
My personal favorite is smartwater ($2.15 per bottle or 6.4 cents/ounce). It comes with a little story on the bottle:
“is it just us or do clouds get a bad rap? while we admit they’re not as great to have around on a beach day, as say, the sun, clouds are unsung heroes because they contain nature’s purest source of water. meanwhile, spring water comes from the ground and contains random stuff and whatever else the animals that swim in it leave behind. that’s why we copied our white puffy friends by creating smartwater. it’s vapor distilled so it is in its purest original state. it’s a difference you can taste . . . unless, of course, you have no taste buds (then you’re on your own). but, we don’t stop there. we one-up the clouds by adding electrolytes just in case you do decide to hit the beach. unfortunately, we can’t fix the whole men with hairy backs thing.”
Now that’s a sales message that’s going to bring in a lot of smart people.
I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this. It’s a slow week in the doldrums of August so what better time to contemplate our fascination with buying expensive water?
When I wheel my cart past the liquor department to the checkout counter, I think I ought to write Augie Busch a letter on how to double Budweiser’s profits. Skip the malt, skip the hops, throw away the fermenting formula. Dump the beer. Sell the water.
