The end of Perrier in Gard ? A damning report points the finger at the “health risk” of the water at the Vergèze site, Nestlé responds

A confidential report from the ARS, which our colleagues at Le Monde and Radio France have obtained, highlights the contamination of the water resources at the Perrier factory in Vergèze, in the Gard region, and invites the Swiss company to consider stopping its production of mineral water.

While Le Monde and Radio France revealed in January 2024 that the Nestlé group was using prohibited treatments on its Hépar, Vittel, Contrex and Perrier brands, a new report from ARS Occitanie points the finger at the sanitary quality of the water at the Vergèze site in the Gard.

Water quality regularly degraded

The document indicates that Nestlé Waters must seriously consider “a cessation of mineral water production at the Vergèze site”. In particular because of the regularly degraded quality of its water resources, which should normally be “microbiologically healthy” and “kept safe from any risk of pollution.”

The ARS “invites” Nestlé Waters to “strategically consider another possible food use for the exploitation of current mineral water catchments”, but on the condition that they provide “health safety guarantees” complementary”.

Bacteria “of fecal origin”

Last April, the Gard prefect issued a decree prohibiting the operation of one of the seven wells on the Vergèze site. Following very heavy rains caused by the passage of storm Monica, one of the boreholes at the Gard site was contaminated by bacteria “of fecal origin (coliforms, escherichia coll) but also by germs of the species Pseudomonas aeruginosa”.

The Perrier factory in Vergèze subsequently had to destroy several hundred pallets of bottles.

But this episode, supposed to be a one-off, is in fact linked to a general deterioration in the quality of the groundwater used by the Swiss group in Vergèze.

The risk of fraud continues

Last July, Le Mondeand Radio France revealed that Nestlé had used purification treatments banned since 2005 or even 1993 for several years to mask bacterial and/or chemical contamination. The company had also confirmed this.

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These techniques – microfiltration, UV filters and activated carbon – were notably used by the firm on its Vosges site where Contrex, Hépar and Vittel waters are drawn and on some of its wells in Vergèze.

In a mission letter, the Gard prefect Jérôme Bonet had ordered that the Vergèze factory be inspected on May 30 to check “the proper dismantling of banned products”. But the ARS report explains that even if certain prohibited treatments have been withdrawn, “nothing prevents the treatment of natural mineral water by unauthorized processes used for other types of water”.

Viral risk for consumers

Worse, the report highlights a possible “virological risk”(adenovirus, norovirus, hepatitis A) for consumers. Because the microfilter technique used by Nestlé Waters has “no retention effect on viruses”. This virological risk had apparently been overlooked by the government, our colleagues point out.

In 2021, Nestlé admitted to using many banned filters to treat its water and asked the government if it was possible to continue using them. Several administrations then warned of the consequences of such a type of exemption.

Among them, the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) which submitted a report to the government in July 2022, explaining that the use of these non-compliant filters could constitute “false security” and “expose consumers to a health risk linked to the ingestion of viruses”.

The National Agency for Food Safety (ANSES) had also reported this viral risk in December 2022. Despite this, the Borne government had decided on February 22, 2023, to authorize Nestlé to use these microfilters, as evidenced by a report of an interministerial meeting that Le Monde and Radio France held procured.

The Gard prefecture must decide on the application for renewal of the operating permit for the “Perrier source” to produce natural mineral water. Questioned by our colleagues, it indicated that it could make its decision in the “first half of 2025”.

Nestlé Waters' response

This confidential document consulted by our colleagues at Le Monde and Radio France is, according to Nestlé Water's Communications Director Valérie Berrebi, an "interim report" : "It is a report that was produced by the ARS as part of an adversarial process. It does not constitute a definitive recommendation at all and we cannot, at this stage, make any further comments", she explained to Midi Libre.

Regarding the prohibited techniques, microfiltration, UV filters and activated carbon, Nestlé indicates that it has "withdrawn the ultraviolet and activated carbon treatments that did not comply with the regulatory framework" in the Gard. For the rest, Valérie Berrebi specified that this is "done within the framework set by the authorities and under their control".

Concerning a potential sale to Danone, Nestlé explains that it has "invested 150 million euros over the last five years on the Vergèze site" to "prepare the future" of the Gard region to which it is "extremely attached".