By: Ireland Betzold
Summary. The bottled water market is a global industry that sells water mainly in the form of plastic bottles. This industry is growing very rapidly and has been since the 1970’s. Most forms of bottled water are distributed for the purpose of drinking water. However, this is not always the case. Distilled water can also be used for things such as scientific use or car batteries. Although water is a necessity, buying drinking water from large global bottled water markets is extremely unsustainable. The reason that the market is so popular, even though many are aware of its faults, is due to one main thing: convenience. It is much more convenient to purchase a $1 bottle of water from the store than it is to locate a drinking water source and provide your own cup or glass. It is also a very common fact that bottled water is safer/ healthier than tap water. However, this is a myth. This topic is very relevant in today’s news because of COVID-19 and its effect on the industry. During quarantine when everybody was locked up inside their houses, large amounts of bottled drinking water were being consumed. Many people even took this further and hoarded mass amounts of bottled water, much of which they did not need. As stated before, the consumption of these plastic drinking water options is extremely unsustainable. The production of the plastic bottles is a huge contribution to the release of fossil fuels and global warming itself. In addition to this, the industry seems to have no intention of slowing down, as it has been growing steadily.
Why we should care? The main reason we should care about the global bottled water market is because of its immense contribution to global warming.
This article was incredibly interesting because it did a very good job at explaining the intense growth of the bottled water industry. The study covers the growth over a certain period of time, 2021-2026. Not only does it discuss the reason for the incline, but it also lists multiple insights that help us understand the pattern of the growth. This article was extremely helpful in understanding why the growth rate of these companies is flourishing and will continue to in the upcoming years. I also chose this article because of its relevance. The author mentions how COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the market, and how the pandemic has and will continue to cause growth of the global bottled water industry. However, COVID-19 is not the only pushing factor. There are multiple other factors that contribute to the growing industry of bottled water.
Science in Action.
Dr. Subhash C. Jain is a professor Emeritus at University of Connecticut.
Dr. Jain specializes in understanding marketing strategy and multinational marketing. In addition to this, he is also the author of over 100 publications including 12 books containing various marketing information. Although he resides in the United States, Jain holds many presentations and seminars all across the globe. Some of these seminars include the topics of marketing and export strategy, and global branding. I feel as though this is crucial to his credibility, as it proves he has had much experience in analyzing larger scale markets, such as the global bottled water industry. He also works as a consultant to many organizations such as United Technologies and General Motors. Jain is very passionate about the global bottled water market, hence why he performed a case study assessing global competitiveness within the bottled water industry.