ICAP: rapid and sustained growth of the bottled water industry

Double-digit rise steadily in recent years the market for bottled water. As is apparent from a new study by ICAP for the industry, the volume of domestic apparent consumption of bottled water has been increasing during the period 1990-2008, with an average annual rate of around 12%.

In 2008, consumption rose by 13.6% compared with the previous year. The largest market share of bottled water occupies the category of natural mineral waters with a 72.5% in 2008, followed by the category of table water with 21% and the category of carbon to 6.5%.

As mentioned, significant changes have occurred over the years in regards to packaging of bottled water. Specifically, a substitution of pvc packaging of safer packaging type pet, while broadening the use of glass bottles of 1lt, especially in foodservice. According to market sources, the packaging of the glass bottle 1lt shows growing demand for foodservice in recent years. Moreover, there is upward trend in the market for bottled water coolers.

WORKPLACES

The need for easy and convenient access to bottled water in the workplace led to some major companies in the industry in bottled water packaging 5lt, 10lt and 18,9 lt, to exploit the emerging trend. According to stakeholders, the continued rise in oil prices poses problems for companies active in the business of bottled water, and affects the prices of packaging materials (PET - a derivative of petroleum), and the cost of transporting the goods in Greece. Transport costs are already quite high, since water is a heavy load with low price (hence small margin), and thus discouraging firms to export.

Competition

Note that the bottled water industry is one of the fastest developing sectors of the wider food industry, beverages, characterized by intense competition. The question the industry a significant number of SMEs and few large companies, which either deal exclusively with bottled water, or working in the broader food and beverage industry.