Clich here - Nestle Waters

ONCE upON A TImE…
with a well-founded reputation for creativity and
marketing panache. The stakes were significant.
Perrier’s closest rival was BSN (which would
become Danone in 1994), which counted Evian and
Badoit among its leading brands. Nestlé analysed
the situation and launched a takeover bid, from
which the company would eventually emerge
victorious in the spring of 1992.
True to the promise made in Glion, Nestlé moved
fast to set up a new company, and in December 1992
Nestlé Sources International (NSI) was launched.
The world now had a new leader in bottled water.
The launch of a new leader
Here, we turn the page again, and enter the last
two decades of our tale. From this moment, our
story unfolds in the context of dedicated Nestlé
08
commitment to bottled water – and the pace
quickens.
Immediately, NSI set about tackling two clear
priorities: taking stock of Perrier’s holdings and
subsidiaries so as to focus on strategic activities,
and uniting former rivals - Perrier and Vittel - into
a cohesive team. European monopoly regulations
required NSI to sell some of the brands in the
Perrier portfolio, including Volvic, which was
ceded to BSN. A new brand was now needed to
vie with Volvic in the international marketplace,
and the solution was found in the form of a lightly
mineralised water from the Ardennes forest in
Belgium. Valvert, considered the perfect match
for Volvic, made its debut in 1992. Launched
simultaneously in five countries - Belgium, France,
Germany, Switzerland and Japan - it was the first
international bottled water brand to be packaged
in PET, the plastic material that was destined to
revolutionise the bottled water sector.
There were other launches at this time too, notably
that of Quézac in France in 1995, to rival Danone’s
top-selling brand of sparkling table water, Badoit.
Further afield, NSI was consolidating the leading
position established by the Perrier Group of
America (PGA) which had acquired a series of
regional brands from coast to coast - including the
best-selling Poland Spring - to become a major
player in the US bottled water market. With a
surge in popularity of small PET formats and the
solid support base of the former PGA brands, the
outlook in the US market was rosy.
In other parts of the world too, these were heady
days for expansion. In 1993, NSI had acquired
the Korpi brand in Greece, and entered joint
venture agreements with La Vie in Vietnam and
Minéré in Thailand. Other deals were struck with
Naleczowianka in Poland and Santa Maria in
Mexico in 1994, followed by NSI investment in a
spring near Tianjin in China.