Bottled Water

When bottled water was first introduced a few decades ago I thought it was one of the dumbest things I’d ever heard of. Why would someone pay a dollar or more for something you easily could get for free from a tap? Of course, I was horribly wrong. Bottled water now outsells carbonated soft drinks. Here’s what consumption of bottled still water looks like over time:

Sparkling Water’s Rise

In the 1988 cult classic movie Heathers, the main character, Veronica (played by Winona Ryder), and her psychotic boyfriend (played by Christian Slater), start murdering popular (but horrible) kids in their high school and make it look like suicide. At one point they murder two high school football stars and make it look like a joint suicide of gay lovers. In order to lead the police to that conclusion, they leave sparkling water at the scene. The cops find the bubbly water and immediately conclude they were gay. Obviously, 1988 (the year I graduated from High School) was a very different time — there’s no way a movie about some students killing other students would be made now given all the school shooting tragedies. Plus there’s the fact that sparkling water is hugely popular now.

Sparkling water has gone from a fringe drink to a mainstay for millions of people. The below chart shows the rise in sales of sparkling water from 2006 – 2019 in liters:

And sales of sparkling water are expected to continue to grow for the foreseeable future (shown in dollars):

Personally, I love sparkling water and I drink multiple cans a day. Its popularity has been driven by all the great flavors that make drinking bubbly water enjoyable and because it has zero calories, no sugar, and no aspartame. Consumption of carbonated sodas has been on the decline, caused in part by consumers choosing healthier sparkling water in its place.

Are there any health concerns about consuming sparkling water? Here’s an IFOD on that topic: Sparkling Water is All the Rage, But is it Bad For Your Health?

Independent manufacturers such as Sparkling Ice and LaCroix are market leaders, but the big beverage companies like Pepsi and Coke are competing strongly with their brands Bubly and AHA after being late to the game. Here are the most popular sparkling water brands: