Maine (H20) squeeze

Poland Spring is ‘common groundwater’: suit

Nestlé SA is facing a lawsuit alleging its Poland Spring brand is “common groundwater” rather than Maine spring water, which the suit claims makes the marketing of Poland Spring water a “colossal fraud.”

The legal challenge comes as Nestlé — the world’s biggest packaged foods company — has sharpened its focus on bottled water, a lucrative business that brought in global sales of $8.2 billion last year.

The suit, filed this week in a Connecticut district court by 11 consumers who are also seeking class-action status, says that while Nestlé markets Poland Spring as “100% natural spring water,” using images of pristine mountain or forest springs that help it charge a premium, the product doesn’t meet the federal definition of spring water.

The company dismissed the lawsuit as being “with- out merit and an obvious attempt to manipulate the legal system for personal gain.”

Nestlé has been “breaching and exploiting its customers’ trust to reap massive undue sales and profits,” the suit claims.

Poland Spring water doesn’t come from a water source that complies with the US Food and Drug Administration’s definition of spring water, but instead contains groundwater “collected from wells it drilled in saturated plains or valleys where the water table is within a few feet of the earth’s surface,” court papers claim.

The plaintiffs are seeking refunds of the premiums they have paid, which they describe as unjustified, or minimum statutory penalties under state false advertising laws.

The FDA defines spring water as “water derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface of the earth.”

“Poland Spring is 100% spring water,” said Nestlé in a statement. “It meets the FDA regulations defining spring water, all state regulations governing spring classification for standards of identity, as well as all federal and state regulations governing spring water collection, good manufacturing practices, product quality and labeling.”

Poland Spring has been sued on similar ground before.

In 2003 the company settled a US class action for $12 million. That lawsuit claimed that the water in Poland Spring bottles comes from wells, not bubbling springs, and isn’t as pure as its advertising claims.

Nestlé at the time described the settlement as a fair solution.