Nestle CEO will 'absolutely not' stop bottling water in drought-stricken California

(Image credit: Facebook.com/Nestle Pure Life)

published 14 May 2015

And, he added, "If I could increase it, I would."

Nestlé Waters North America CEO Tim Brown made the drought-dismissing comments to a local radio station Wednesday in a discussion prompted by Starbucks' announcement that it would cease bottling operations for its Ethos Water brand in the parched Golden State. Brown point-blank denied the possibility of moving Nestlé's bottling operations out of California, citing capitalist reasoning:

"If I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy another brand of bottled water. … It's driven by consumer demand, it's driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate." [Air Talk with Larry Mantle]

Brown admitted in the interview that of the 700 million gallons of water it pumps annually from California, Nestlé wastes nearly a third. But he also mentioned the company's "zero water" efforts in the state, which would modify the way a milk factory processes water during production and, Brown says, hopefully save millions of gallons per year.