More than €500 million. That is the estimated profit Nestlé (Perrier, Vittel, Hépar, Contrex) allegedly made from its mineral water fraud, according to a French Sénat inquiry commission, which released its findings on Monday, May 19. The report, revealed by Le Monde and Radio France, exposes a "deliberate strategy of concealment" by the major agri-food group and the French government. The consequences of this cover-up resulted in "excessive delays that allowed violations regarding consumer deception and health risk emergence to take root," noted Alexandre Ouizille, the commission's rapporteur and a Socialist senator.

On August 31, 2021, the world leader in bottled water, under pressure from a whistleblower exposing similar practices about its competitor, Sources Alma (Cristaline, St-Yorre…), informed the French Ministry of Industry it was using banned filtration techniques (charcoal filters, UV, microfiltrations). However, the company was ordered to remove these treatments (charcoal and UV filters) a lot later and was only recently asked, in April, to abandon illegal microfiltration systems below 0.2 microns (Perrier) and 0.45 microns (Vittel, Hépar, Contrex).

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