“The bottled water was not as pure as we thought.
» The consumer defense association Foodwatch will file a complaint this Wednesday against Nestlé Waters and the Sources Alma group for the prohibited disinfection treatments they used on their mineral waters, including Vittel and Perrier, she said. .
“No one, not even a multinational like Nestlé, is above the law,” said Ingrid Kragl, information director of Foodwatch, quoted in a press release.
“This is why we are filing a complaint today” before the Paris judicial court against these two companies for nine violations of the European directive on mineral waters, the Consumer Code and the Public Health Code, she explains.
“Nestlé Waters but also the French State will have to respond”
At the end of January, the world number one in mineral water Nestlé Waters revealed in the press that it had used banned ultraviolet treatments and activated carbon filters on some of its mineral waters (Perrier, Vittel, Hépar and Contrex) to maintain “their food security”.
Common practices in the case of tap water, devoid of health risks, but prohibited for natural mineral waters in the European Union.
“Using water treatment systems such as carbon filters or UV filters, filling bottles with tap water, hiding these processes from the eyes of controllers, marketing non-compliant products, is simply prohibited”, insists the association, which compares this “fraud” to the “horse meat scandal around ten years ago”.
Nestlé Waters also admitted having informed the French authorities of these practices in 2021, who then opened an investigation concluding that “nearly 30% of commercial designations” including some from the Sources Alma group “are subject to non-compliant treatment” in France, Le Monde and Radio France reported at the end of January.
“This is a massive fraud for which Nestlé Waters, the Sources Alma group but also the French State will have to answer,” believes Foodwatch.
Also readDisinfection of mineral water: five minutes to understand a harmless but prohibited practice
The association sent a letter to the European Commission, denouncing “the complacency of France, involved in this affair for several years, which should have alerted the European authorities and other Member States importing this water”.
The public prosecutor's office in Epinal, in the Vosges, announced at the end of January the opening of a preliminary investigation against the subsidiary of the Swiss group for deception.
“This new scandal highlights the opacity denounced by Foodwatch for several years and which systematically surrounds food fraud while consumers demand transparency, controls and exemplary sanctions,” concludes the association's press release.