Modesto shoppers prefer turning bottle cap to faucet for water

As U.S. consumption of soda continues to fall, sales of water are rising and closing the gap.

Yes, sales.

Because if shoppers in Modesto are any indication – and apparently, they are – people are snapping up bottled water rather than turning on the faucet more frequently.

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said Monday that the company is reshaping its product lineup to better reflect the growing interest in healthy eating and noted it has reduced its reliance on colas for sales, The Associated Press reported.

The maker of Frito-Lay snacks, Mountain Dew, Naked juices and Quaker Oats now gets less than 25 percent of its global sales from soda, Nooyi said. She said options such as bottled water and unsweetened drinks account for 25 percent of sales.

Using data from Euromonitor, the Quartz website, qz.com, reported Monday that bottled water and soda sales are about even, at more than 30 billion liters, with water set to overtake soda. Quartz is a digital global business news publication owned by the publisher of The Atlantic.

Reports in other publications, from Food Business News to The New York Times to USA Today, all say bottled water is on track to overtake soda as the largest beverage category within the next year or two.

In a February article, Business Insider reported that bottled water can cost 2,000 times as much as tap water. It said beverage giants are “investing in simple bottled tap water – the most straightforward marketing trick in existence” and added, “Bottled water is a $13 billion business that, logically, doesn’t need to exist.”

While some products are touted as being “spring water,” PepsiCo’s Aquafina comes from a public water source and undergoes a “seven-step Hydro-7 purification system.” And the Coca-Cola Co.’s Dasani is simply “purified water enhanced with minerals” for taste.

But taste makes all the difference, and makes it worth paying for bottled water, several consumers told The Bee outside stores and on Facebook on Tuesday.

Jennie Williamson of Modesto was loading up her trunk with a variety of beverages, including Coke, Sprite, Powerade sports drink and two cases of bottled water. Her teenage son told her, “Just get water, Mom,” she said. “But he’s going to want a soda every once in a while, and he has friends over.”

Williamson said tap water “tastes ugly,” so her family has a filter on its kitchen faucet and a Brita filtered pitcher in the fridge. Her son likes to use the pitcher, she said, but even at home, she tends to drink bottled water. And she chills a couple of bottles to take with her when she’s “on the go.”

Cory O’Neal of Modesto said he doesn’t drink much soda and drinks tap water at home only when he has to because he’s run out of bottled. He even cooks with bottled water. “It seems more clean,” he said, adding that he doesn’t “trust” tap water.

“This does taste better,” O’Neal said, gesturing to a case of water in his shopping cart. “You never know what tap water will taste like.”

Heading to his car with no water but with a pack of Pepsi, Glenn Hensyel of Modesto said it will take him a long time to go through the soft drinks. “I can go weeks without a soda.” He drinks far more water, lemonade and juices, he said.

Tap water doesn’t taste good, Hensyel said, so he has osmosis filters on his faucet and in his refrigerator dispenser. Because of those, “bottled water at home lasts forever,” he said. But he buys cases of water for the road – he’s a long-distance truck driver who regularly makes trips to Colorado and Nebraska.

The mother of children ages 12, 11 and 2, Hosanna Perez of Modesto said she and they all are water drinkers. “I don’t drink soda,” she said. At home, her family, too, has faucet and fridge filters, but she buys cases of water for when the family is out and about. “We go through three or four cases of bottles a month on top of what we drink at home.”

Only one shopper interviewed said she can’t bring herself to buy bottled water, except on rare occasions. “I’m not paying for water unless we go on a trip,” said DeAndra Brown of Salida. “It’s ridiculous, especially when tests of water show it has the same stuff in it as tap water.”

The companies just add minerals to make it taste better, she said. She agreed that her tap water doesn’t taste good, and is “pretty cloudy” when it comes out, but a water pitcher with a filter cartridge does the trick.

When out and about with her kids, Brown uses refillable bottles. “When we go on a trip like to the beach, we’ll maybe buy water then, but it’s very rare.”

Melissa Duran of the Modesto Water Services Division said this about water’s taste: “Water taste can vary depending on the age of the pipes within customers’ homes. Also, percentage of well water (which has a higher mineral content) mixing with surface water and the process of disinfection could make a difference in the taste of the water.”

While the city might not be able to change any minds about the taste of tap water, the Modesto drinking water supply is more highly regulated than bottled water and meets all standards, Utilities Director Larry Parlin said.

“There is plenty of scientific evidence that supports all the regulatory standards. The city water supply undergoes rigorous testing regularly,” he told The Bee in an email.

“The power of advertising created a great business model for the bottled water industry. The cost of a bottle of water is approximately 2,500 times more expensive than the same volume of tap water. Not to mention the waste created by bottles and the resources used to manufacture them.”

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 3:28 PM with the headline "Modesto shoppers prefer turning bottle cap to faucet for water."