Perrier Begins Construction on New U.S Bottling Plant

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). The largest bottled water company, The Perrier Group of America (Greenwich, Connecticut), began construction this past spring on a new $60 million, 400,000 sqft Bottled Water plant in Hawkins, Texas. Once completed in 2003, the Texas site will be home to the company's fifteenth bottling plant in the U.S. Construction management services are being performed by the Haskell Company (Jacksonville, Florida). The plant will serve not only as a bottling and distribution location, but will include glass blow molding equipment to produce the company's famous green colored bottles.

Established in 1863, French based The Perrier Group began importing bottled water to the US in early 1900. Annual revenue from US sales exceeded $1 billion in 2001. IIR is tracking two other bottling plants the company has under development in the US, one of which has been recently sited in Michigan after the company abandoned plans to build in Wisconsin.

Perrier Group of America is a subsidiary of Paris based Perrier Vittel SA, which had annual revenues exceeding $1.6 billion last year in the U.S. bottled water market. This represents approximately 30% of the US bottled water market, according to Jay Brunson, Food & Beverage Group Manager with Industrialinfo.com.