Compliance of Nestlé-Owned Brands with French Regulations: Impact on Production and Employment

2024-01-29 19:39:08

Published on: 01/29/2024 – 8:39 p.m.

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The brands concerned – Perrier, Vittel, Hépar and Contrex -, all owned by Nestlé, are now “fully compliant with the regulatory framework applicable in France”, assures the company, which says it has abandoned the prohibited treatments over the last three years.

Resulting from a European directive, the regulations prohibit any disinfection of mineral waters which must naturally be of high microbiological quality, unlike tap water which is disinfected before becoming drinkable.

A regulation whose interpretation excludes the ultraviolet treatments and activated carbon filters used by Nestlé Waters.

But the company justifies the use of these techniques by “changes in the environment around its sources, which can sometimes make it difficult to maintain the stability of the essential characteristics” of its waters, in other words their absence of pollution.

Closed wells

These practices were a “heritage of the past”, judges Ms. Lienau, who says she cannot precisely date their introduction.

Nestlé Waters decided in 2021 to inform the health authorities of their use of these filtration techniques.

The Nestlé Waters logo on its Vittel bottling site, in the Vosges, October 24, 2023 © JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN / AFP/Archives

The authorities confirmed to him that ultraviolet light and activated carbon might be interpreted as disinfection, unlike the microfiltration that Nestlé continues to use.

In agreement with the authorities, the company put an end to these treatments, forcing it to close four of its wells in the Vosges which might not “guarantee the essential characteristics of mineral water”.

The closed wells, attached to the Hépar and Contrex brands, were particularly sensitive to climatic hazards – “following major droughts, heavy rains disrupted them” – explains Muriel Lienau.

These closures led to a division of Hépar’s production by two.

Concerning Perrier, Nestlé had to reallocate some of the wells in Gard towards the production of a new brand of flavored waters and energy drinks, Maison Perrier, which is therefore not subject to regulations on mineral waters.

In a press release, the group’s CGT union explained that it had never been informed “of the water treatment process”. The CGT elected officials “will look at the different possibilities they have legally in relation to possible actions on this obvious lack of transparency vis-à-vis the CSEs”. The social and economic committee is the staff representation body in the company.

Plan social

The site has been affected by a voluntary departure plan since 2020. “This is less employment, but which can be explained by a more efficient production tool,” reports Mr. Alméras.

The cessation of the incriminated treatments, concomitant with the end of the marketing of the Vittel brand in Germany, also motivated the group to launch a social plan in the Vosges, resulting in the elimination of 171 positions, without dismissal according to an agreement in November with the unions.

“It’s a company that does what it wants and no one has the means to control what it does,” he criticized. “For me, there is more than a failure of controls, there is an abandonment (…) of the State, of successive powers” for years, he further estimated.

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