The Perrier is the new absent from the shelves. For several months, the green bottle has been more discreet: already in December, sparkling drinks were one of the products suffering the most shortages, according to a NielsenIQ – LSA barometer. For Perrier, the operating conditions have been “increasingly difficult”.
The first fault is the embargo on Russian oil and gas. The drink is made up of carbon dioxide, itself derived from fertilizer. “To make fertilizer, you need nitrogen, hydrogen and above all a lot of heat. And to have heat, you need gas, the price of which has exploded, explains to Liberation Christophe Laffont, general manager of Sodastream France. Nestlé Waters also argues the cost of certain raw materials, such as plastic and glass, the price of which has risen sharply since the Ukrainian conflict.
But Perrier also suffers from “meteorological events that have become more frequent and intense”, with alternating episodes of drought and heavy rains”. Add to this, work in progress on the production site located in Vergèze (Gard), aimed at “ensuring sustainable management of water resources”… The drink will therefore have to wait another “a few months” before regaining fully all its bubbles.