A Senate report deplores the “opacity” surrounding the treated mineral water issue

by time news

2024-10-16 16:14:00

Ten months after the first revelations about Nestlé’s use of prohibited treatments on its bottled water, a Senate report holds public authorities and industrialists responsible for the “opacity” surrounding the matter.

In April the Senate announced the launch of a “flash” parliamentary mission, entrusted to Antoinette Guhl, an environmentalist senator from Paris.

“The rapporteur deplores the lack of transparency of some public and private actors found in the mission and, above all, the slowness in compliance by industrialists in the absence of more proactive measures by the State,” reads a summary of the report , adopted by the Upper House Economic Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

The socialist group in the Senate immediately announced that it will create a commission of inquiry “to shed light on the bottled water scandal”.

In January, preceded by press reports, Nestlé Waters, a subsidiary of the Swiss agri-food giant, admitted to having used banned disinfection systems to maintain the “food safety” of its mineral waters.

In France, Nestlé owns the Vittel, Contrex and Hépar brands, tapped and bottled in the Vosges, and Perrier in the Gard.

“The Rapporteur regrets that no corrective actions have been taken against the affected sites following NW’s confession in 2021,” the report indicates.

The government was informed by Nestlé in 2021 of its use of controversial treatments. Without making the matter public, it subsequently relaxed the regulation, allowing manufacturers to use microfilters with a filtration threshold of less than 0.8 microns.

In a statement sent to AFP, Foodwatch believes that the report “confirms the heavy responsibility of ministers in this matter (…)”.

“They should have informed and sanctioned Nestlé and they didn’t do it,” complains the consumer protection NGO, which has filed numerous complaints in this regard.

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