Nestlé Pure Life is a

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

bottled water Bottled water is drinking water (e.g., well water, distilled water, mineral water, or spring water) packaged in plastic or glass water bottles. Bottled water may be carbonated or not. Sizes range from small single serving bottles to large car ...

from

Nestlé Waters Nestlé Waters is a Swiss multinational bottled water division of Nestlé it was founded in 1992. Key Facts and figures (2015) Sales: 7.625 billion CHF Nestlé Waters has roughly 31,740 employees and includes several brands such as Acqua Pa ...

globally and BlueTriton Brands in North America. The brand was first established in 1998 in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

and is now available in 21 countries in Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Europe. In early April 2021, the sale of Nestlé Waters North America's bottling operations, including Nestlé Pure Life, to One Rock Capital Partners LLC and Metropoulos & Co. was concluded.

History

Nestlé Pure Life was first launched in 1998 in

. In 2000, Nestlé Pure Life started being sold in Europe.

North America

Nestlé Pure Life began being sold in the North America in 2002 when Aberfoyle Springs branded water, which brand and facilities Nestlé bought in 2000, was rebranded as Nestlé Pure Life Aberfoyle and later Nestlé Pure Life Natural Spring Water. Aberfoyle Springs was first established in 1993. Nestlé also began to bottle Montclair branded water at the facilities. As of mid 2020, the water extracted by Nestlé Canada was from a source in Aberfoyle, Ontario, a well in

Erin, Ontario Erin is a town in Wellington County, approximately northwest of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Erin is bordered by the Town of Caledon, Ontario to the east, the Town of Halton Hills to the south, the Township of Guelph/Eramosa to the west and the Tow ...

and another in

Hope, British Columbia Hope is a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end ...

. The company also owned well in

Elora, Ontario Elora is a community in the township of Centre Wellington, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. It is well known for its 19th-century limestone architecture and the geographically significant Elora Gorge. Elora is no longer an independent enti ...

which had yet to be tapped. On 3 July 2020, Nestlé Canada announced that it had agreed to sell its water bottling business to

Ice River Springs Ice River Springs is a private label bottled water producer for retailers and food service operators and manufacturer of the Ice River Green brand of bottled water. The company runs a plastic recycling operation, Blue Mountain Plastics (BMP), th ...

, of Shelburne, Ontario. The latter would acquire the source and bottling operations in Aberfoyle, Ontario and in

, and a well in

. The announcement came after the

Government of Ontario The government of Ontario (french: Gouvernement de l'Ontario) is the body responsible for the administration of the Canadian province of Ontario. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown—represented in the province by the lieutenant governor� ...

announced plans that would allow

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

greater power to veto new bottling plants and to set new restrictions on removing groundwater. Nestlé, however, stated that its plans to sell the water bottling business was already in the planning stages in 2019. Ice River was expected to take over the Pure Life brand and the ReadyRefresh delivery service. The deal was awaiting regulator approval which was not achieved in a timely manner leading Nestlé to cancel the deal in early September 2020. On 16 February 2021, Nestlé announced that it had agreed to sell most of its water brands in North America to One Rock Capital Partners and Metropoulos & Co, creating BlueTriton Brands. The sale, which concluded in early April, included the spring water and mountain brands, including the North America assets of Pure Life, the purified water brand and the delivery service. The deal did not include the Perrier, S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna brands.

Production and distribution

In Canada, Nestlé has two bottling facilities that produce Nestlé Pure Life branded water, the larger of the two is located in Aberfoyle, Ontario and the smaller one is in Hope, BC. Warehouses are located in

Chilliwack, British Columbia Chilliwack ( )( hur, Ts'elxwéyeqw) is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Chilliwack is surrounded by mountains and home to recreational areas such as Cultus Lake, British Columbia, Cultus Lake and Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park ...

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

and

Laval, Quebec Laval (; ) is a city in Quebec, Canada. It is in the southwest of the province, north of Montreal. It is the largest suburb of Montreal, the third-largest city in the province after Montreal and Quebec City, and the thirteenth largest city in C ...

. Nestlé Pure Life water is sold in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

, including the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

, and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Controversy

Nestlé has been criticized for bottling water in poor regions like South America, which could drain natural water sources and deprive people who can't afford the expensive bottled water. The movie ''Bottled Life'' documented the situation and won several film awards. In Canada, much of the water extracted by the company for its Pure Life brand has been at a source in the village of Aberfoyle, Ontario in

Puslinch, Ontario Puslinch () is a township in south-central Ontario, Canada, in Wellington County, surrounding the south end of Guelph. The main source of production is agricultural, spring water bottling and mining. Aggregate mining has been dominant throughout ...

, located in

Wellington County, Ontario Wellington County is a county located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada and is part of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The County, made up of two towns and five townships, is predominantly rural in nature. However many of the residents in the so ...

and under the jurisdiction of the City of

Guelph, Ontario Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Welli ...

. For some years, a local advocacy group, Wellington Water Watchers has expressed concern about the amount of water being extracted by the company. Formed in 2007, the group's mandate is "the protection, restoration and conservation of drinking water in Guelph and Wellington County". After the planned sale of the Nestlé Canada's water bottling business to Ice River Springs was announced in early July 2020, Wellington Water Watchers said that this was "a victory for the people of Ontario ... a response by Nestle to public pressure". In a later statement, however, a spokesperson said that Ontario should be phasing out the bottled

water industry The water industry provides drinking water and wastewater services (including sewage treatment) to residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of the economy. Typically public utilities operate water supply networks. The water industry doe ...

, a "low priority and frivolous use of the water taking". Nearly a year earlier (July 2019), the Wellington group had demanded that the provincial government obtain an environmental assessment before renewing the company's licence to remove any groundwater. (Water taking is controlled by the Ontario

Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks is an Ontario government ministry responsible for protecting and improving the quality of the environment in the Canadian province of Ontario, as well as coordinating Ontario's actions on c ...

.) At the time, Nestlé’s permit to extract up to 3.6 million litres of water per day was close to coming up for renewal. The most recent study (reported in March 2020) by the City of Guelph about the Aberfoyle source included this comment: Nestlé’s water-taking "has not caused a decline or drop in water levels year after year" and that "water-taking at the current rate is sustainable at this point in time".

References

External links