Focus On Bottled Water: 15 February

By Daniel Selwood (daniel.dSelwood@TheGrocer.co.uk)

Publishing: 15 February 2025

Advertising deadline: 31 January 2025

Submissions deadline: 24 January 2025

Print, digital and sponsorship opportunities

Bottled water is booming. Sales spiked by 12.3% on volumes up 7.1% last year, making it one of the UK’s fastest growing soft drinks categories. Of course, growing sales of bottled water also means growing use of single-use plastic bottles, which environmental NGOs including the WWF want banned. Many of the big brands, meanwhile, have pledged to switch to using 100% recycled plastic (rPET) in their bottles this year. With the UK’s long-awaited deposit return scheme, which is expected to increase the availability of quality rPET, not likely to be launched until 2027 at the earliest, how likely is it that brands will hit their rPET targets? How else is the bottled water responding to criticism of its environmental record and cleaning up its act?

Marketing: We will also be looking at how the big brands are using their marketing budgets to convince shoppers to continue putting bottled water in their baskets. How reliant are they on celebrity endorsements, primetime TV ads and digital? And how can challengers with shallower pockets cut through the noise?

Retail share: This feature will explore how different retailers are managing the category in terms of ranging, promotions and balancing brands and own label product assortments. How are brands working with retailers to create excitement in the fixture? Which retailers are in strongest growth and why?

The environment: Bottled water is under growing scrutiny from environmental NGOs. What is the industry doing to allay environmental concerns?

Innovation: This feature will pay close attention to the latest trends in still, sparkling and flavoured bottled water and how this is playing out in terms of product innovation. We will profile four new products or ranges, ideally ones that have not appeared in The Grocer before. We need launch date, rsp, and a hi-res picture of each.