I want to start this topic off with some statistics about bottled water consumption just so we have a general idea of how large an industry bottled water is.
According to the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) in conjunction with the Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC) the U.S. consumed 9.67 billion gallons of bottled water in 2012. The breakdown of that statistic is 30.8 gallons of bottled water consumed per citizen. Converted to a dollar amount, Americans spent $11.8 billion on bottled water in 2012 (“Bottled Water”). This makes it the fastest growing in absolute beverage sales in the U.S. And the numbers are shown to have only gone up from there.
The reason for this is primarily lifestyle changes. The portion of the population becoming health conscious is growing which means that when reaching for beverages on the go, instead of soda or juice, more and more people are grabbing bottled water. And advertisers are aware of this. Water is the “healthy, zero calorie, pure hydration” choice for people on the move. It’s convenient, it’s healthy, and it’s being marketed incredibly well.
What does this mean for geography? With a growing market come growing opportunities in the areas in which these companies are located. With more money being spent on bottled water, bottled water companies need to grow in order to keep up with demand. This means producing more bottled water, which often times means the building of new, bigger factories, to increase production. The building of these new factories effects the housing market (i.e. buyers and sellers of property, construction companies, etc.) as well as the amount of jobs in an area. With bigger facilities often comes the need for more workers.
The downside to this can be that people who cannot match these companies prices for property often face foreclosure and are forced to move away from the area. Also, companies tend to hire the cheapest legal labor possible and it can be difficult if not impossible to live off of solely the wages made at these jobs.
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