Bottles of water at a high price

On the heights of Megève, at 1740 meters above sea level, The source of the Sasse is currently only accessible by snowmobile. Benoît Szymanski comes here regularly to check the quality of his source. To hear it, it’s much more than water flowing here. “We are dealing with a product that is alive, that comes out of the mountain. It’s an experience that we offer, we’re almost drinking, like when we were kids, straight from our hands, in a mountain stream“, describes the one who is the commercial director of the Sasse sources. According to him, Sasse water has no particular taste and contains few minerals. But it highlights its purity and especially its bottle, unique and designed by a local artisan. This would explain a good part of the price. For a 74 cl bottle, count on 12 euros in a delicatessen to 18 euros in a restaurant. “The philosophy is to have a container as exceptional as the content“, notes Benoît Szymanski.

“The philosophy is to have a container as exceptional as the content.”

Benoît Szymanski, sales director of Eau de la Sasse

Marketing water at a high price, it is not only in the French Alps that people have thought about it. Do you know, for example, Aur’a, a Romanian water which contains gold and silver nanoparticles? 9 euros per liter but no response to our requests. Even more expensive is this American water whose bottle is encrusted with crystals, available for up to 65 euros for 75 cl. But then, what are these waters that claim to be out of the ordinary really worth? “Whether it is this water or this one, it comes to the same thing, explains a salesman whom we interviewed anonymously in front of the water section of a department store in the Paris region. It’s the packaging that makes the difference“.

We then asked Alexis Durand, a “water sommelier” whose boutique is located in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, for his opinion. He sells some of his bottles to customers who are not quite like the others. “There is the water that Lionel Messi drinks. Here, it’s Madonna’s and finally, here’s Tom Crusie’s“, he explains in front of a display which brings together around thirty prestigious waters. To prove to us the unique character of his products, this former wine expert offers us the tasting of an Icelandic bottle. “It is truly characteristic of glacier waters. We really find youth, freshness in the water“, he describes in the manner of the former wine sommelier that he was, after having tasted a glass of water. Question: do the intrinsic qualities of a water justify that certain bottles are sold for around ten ‘euros and sometimes much more?’Water for me symbolizes healthanswers Alexis Durand. What are we willing to spend to be healthy?“, he asks in turn.

Scientific and ecological doubts

These prestigious waters would therefore have medicinal virtues and would be – for some of them – rich in minerals, hence their high prices. Many brands also highlight these assets in their advertising. “Drinking Aur’a water regularly helps strengthen your immune system“, indicates for example Romanian water with gold and silver nanoparticles. “Probably the purest water in the world“, indicates another brand which offers “fog water”. Slogans that annoy Bernard Legube. For this emeritus professor at the University of Poitiers who has been studying water for fifty years, the therapeutic properties of many mineral waters remain to be proven. According to him, so-called luxury water is perhaps a collector’s affair but certainly not a health one. He gives the eexample of glacier water. “Water extracted from a glacier will be absolutely tastelesshe specifies. The difference in quality between this bottle and the one you and I will find in the local supermarket does not exist. This does not justify selling a liter of water for 50 euros per bottle..” This emergence of new bottled waters also worries environmental activists. According to a Swiss study, because of the transport and manufacturing of bottles, the carbon footprint of a liter of mineral water is on average 1,500 times worse than that of a liter of tap water.

Among our sources (non-exhaustive list):

“Tap water, a no-brainer”, 2022, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland.

“Global bottled water industry: a review of impacts and trends”, 2023, Institute of water, environment and health, United Nations University.