Perrier’s mineral water source contains faecal matter and E.coli, says leaked report
SPRING water destined for Perrier, Vittel, and other flagship Nestle brands contains faecal matter, E. Coli and “pollutants” and current treatment methods cannot “guarantee” it is safe, according to French health authorities.
The Swiss food giant has been embroiled in a spring water scandal since French media leaked a government probe in January asserting that around 30 per cent of mineral water sold in France had undergone illegal purification treatment only meant to be used on tap water.
French law, based on a European Union directive, forbids such purification of mineral water, which is supposed to be of naturally high quality before bottling. The initial probe found that Nestle had concealed for years the fact it illicitly treated supposedly pure mineral water to sell it at vastly inflated prices compared to tap water, even going so far as to hide filters in electrical cabinets to fool health inspectors. Its Nestle Waters arm has since confirmed that it put some top brands, such as Perrier and Vittel, through ultraviolet light and active carbon filters “to guarantee food safety”, and had informed French authorities about this in 2021.
It said this system had been put in place for a good cause, namely to guarantee the safety of its products, which “remains our absolute priority”.
However, a leaked investigation by France’s food safety body, Anses and the Nancy hydrology laboratory came to a different conclusion, according to findings published yesterday by Le Monde and France Info.
Anses experts reportedly warned that they had an “insufficient level of confidence” in Nestle to “guarantee the sanitary quality of finished products”, namely the natural mineral waters marketed by the Nestle group.
They said they had found widespread contamination of spring water both in the eastern Grand Est region, where the Hépar, Vittel and Contrex brands are bottled, and in the southwestern Occitanie region, which bottles Perrier. The memo cites regular microbiological contamination from coliform bacteria, E. Coli and enterococci in many wells “reaching high concentrations on several occasions”, even though the rules governing natural mineral waters do not tolerate the presence of any bacteria in the water, either before or after bottling. The report also points to the presence of chemical contaminants, particularly so-called “eternal pollutants” used massively by industry, along with pesticides and their by-products.
French government sources insist that authorities had found “no health risk” linked to the bottled water.
The experts recommend “reinforced monitoring” of Nestlé factories “given the many reports of contamination of faecal origin”, “the notable chronic presence of micropollutants”, and “the absence of parameters for monitoring viral contamination of the water”.
In its response to the report, Nestle said: “We continue to produce natural mineral water at our Vergèze and Vosges sites, using boreholes that meet the strict standards defined for natural mineral water and in accordance with the prefectoral decrees governing the operation of our sites.” It insisted its mineral water “complies with regulations” and its classification is not called into question by “residual traces” of pesticides or eternal pollutants.