Perrier

Perrier is a brand of bottled mineral water made from a spring in Vergèze in the Gard département of France. Perrier is naturally carbonated; however, both the water and natural carbonic gas are captured independently and the carbonic gas is added in the bottling phase. Perrier claims that the level of carbonation in every bottle of Perrier is the same as the water of the Vergèze spring.

Perrier is available in Europe in bottles of one litre and 500 ml as well as 330 ml cans. All Perrier bottles are green and have an instantly recognizable shape. It is one of the most common bottled waters in France. In August 2001 the company introduced a new bottling format using polyethylene terephthalate to offer Perrier in plastic, a change that took 11 years to decide which material would best help retain both the water's flavor and its purported "50 million bubbles."

Perrier now exists in three flavours: unflavoured, flavoured with lemon, and flavoured with lime. In 2007, a new Citron Lemon-Lime flavor debuted.

History
The spring it originates from, then called Les Bouillens, was bought in 1898 by a local doctor named Louis Perrier, who operated a spa. He later sold it to Sir St. John Harmsworth, an English aristocrat, and brother of Lord Northcliffe the founder of the Daily Mail who had been sent to France to learn the language. Harmsworth cashed in his shares in the newspaper to buy the spring. Abandoning the spa treatment he renamed it Source Perrier and started bottling it in green bottles shaped like the Indian clubs he used for exercise.

Harmsworth marketed the product in the UK at a time when Frenchness was a desirable thing to the middle classes playing up its French origins. It was advertised as the champagne of Mineral Water; there was a genuine champagne by the name of Perrier but no real connection. Advertising in newspapers like the broad appeal Daily Mail established the brand. Some 95% of sales were to the UK and USA.

Perrier's reputation for purity suffered an embarrassing blow in 1990 when a North Carolina study reported having found benzene in the water. Source Perrier shifted from explanation to explanation on the issue, finally stating that it was an isolated incident of a worker having made a mistake in the filtering procedure and that the spring itself was completely unpolluted. The incident ultimately led to the recall of 160 million bottles of Perrier.

From 1981 to 2005, the company sponsored an annual comedy award in the United Kingdom, the Perrier Comedy Award. In 2006 it was announced that Perrier would no longer sponsor the awards and they were renamed after their new sponsor, Intelligent Finance.

From 2002, some new varieties have been introduced in France: Eau de Perrier (less carbonated than the original one, in a blue bottle) and Perrier Fluo, with trendy tastes such as ginger-cherry, peppermint,orange-litchi, raspberry or ginger-lemon.

In 2004, a crisis erupted when the Nestlé group, owner of Perrier, announced a restructuring plan of Perrier. In 2005, Perrier was ordered to halt restructuring, because of a failure to consult adequately with staff.