Foreign firms taking billions of litres from UK aquifers to make bottled water

Coca-Cola extracts largest amount of freshwater of any drinks company in England, FoI request finds

Foreign multinational companies are extracting billions of litres of water from British aquifers to sell as bottled water, the Guardian can reveal.

Coca-Cola extracts the largest amount of freshwater of any drinks company in England, the data obtained through freedom of information legislation shows. It has a licence to extract 1.59bn litres of water a year from boreholes in Sidcup, Kent for its soft drinks. On top of that, it has the right to take 377m litres for its bottled water brands Glaceau Smartwater and Abbey Well from Morpeth in Northumberland.

The French company Sources Alma is one of the biggest players in the UK water market, supplying bottled water to Tesco and Asda as well as producing its own Aqua Pura brand. Through its British subsidiary Roxane, it has the right to extract 1.5bn litres annually from Armathwaite in Cumbria, where it bottles Tesco’s Ashbeck water. It also bottles large quantities of water in Staffordshire, where it produces Tesco’s Elmhurst brand, but this spring water is supplied by a third company – South Staffordshire Water plc – so the quantities are not publicly available.

The Swiss giant Nestlé Waters has the right to extract a total of 880m litres of water for its brands Buxton and Pure Life from its sites in Derbyshire and Pembrokeshire, where it took over the Welsh company Princes Gate in 2018.

Also in Derbyshire is Germany’s Schwarz, which bottles water for Lidl, with a licence to pump up 700m litres a year. Meanwhile, the French company Danone has bought Harrogate Spring Water, where it can extract 460m litres a year.

In Scotland, Highland Spring is dominant. Its licence allows it to take 1.85bn litres a year from the Speyside Glenlivet crown estate in the Scottish Highlands. Highland Spring is owned by Mahdi Al Tajir, a Bahrain-born billionaire businessman and Scotland’s richest man. Highland Spring said that it only extracted 32% of the amount allowed by its licence and that it had detected “no discernible impact on the rivers and groundwater levels due to abstraction”.

The UK trade body, the Natural Source Water Association, says bottled water represents a tiny fraction of all water abstracted in Britain: in England it is 0.05%, Scotland 0.2% and Wales 0.08%. “For natural source water companies, the water they abstract is the precious commodity at the centre of their operations so they are very careful how they use it,” it said in a statement.

However, the UN special rapporteur for water, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, said that, although the bottling industry used relatively small amounts of water compared with other industries such as intensive agriculture or mining, “the issue is that bottled water companies are taking the best quality drinking water”.

As reported in the Guardian, during droughts in Spain and Latin America, populations have run out of drinking water and have had to buy bottled water from foreign companies who have extracted it from their own national territory. In times of shortage, if governments prioritise giving concessions to private bottling companies, Arrojo-Agudo says, “this can put at risk the availability of this higher quality water for public supply”.

During the UK’s hot summer of 2022, farmers in Ludchurch, Wales, complained that they faced water restrictions while Nestlé continued to extract millions of litres of local water.

Nestlé Waters said: “Nestlé is a founding member of the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS). Our bottling site in Buxton was the first site in the UK to achieve a platinum certification – the highest level available. The Princes Gate site in Pembrokeshire is set to undergo the AWS audit in 2025.”

The bottled water market is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few multinationals, which have bought up many local brands. Five companies account for 83% of bottled water sales in the UK, according to the consultants Zenith Global. Roxane (owned by Sources Alma) has a 38% market share, Nestlé 14%, Highland Spring 12% and Danone 10%. The fifth, Shepley Spring – ultimately owned by the US company Niagara Bottling LLC – has a 9% share of the UK market. Operating through a third company, it has the right to extract almost 600m litres a year in Yorkshire, where it bottles water for Morrisons, Booker, Iceland and Amazon, as well as its own brands Ice Valley and White Rock.

In Britain, there are three types of bottled water. Products sold as “natural mineral water” and “spring water” must come from an underground natural source and be bottled at that source. Unlike mineral water, spring water does not need a guaranteed mineral composition and may be treated to remove or add substances. Products sold as “bottled water” can come from a variety of sources, including tap water. The figures in this article do not include water taken from the municipal public water system, that is to say tap water.

Worldwide, Coca-Cola sells more bottled water than any other company, according to Euromonitor International. Nestlé’s Pure Life is the biggest-selling single brand.

The Environment Agency said: “Water bottling licences come with strict conditions to ensure the environment is protected. Where there is risk of damage to the environment, we have the power to amend or revoke existing licences. These licences currently represent less than 1% of total abstraction licences.”

Cover photo: By The Guardian