Corporate Accountability International: Community Protests, Slowing Market Hang Over Nestle Shareholders' Meeting

BOSTON, April 10  /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today in Lausanne, Switzerland, Nestle executives and shareholders had the opportunity to reflect on a year that has been marked by a growing antipathy toward the corporation's signature product -- bottled water.

Community protests over water rights have stymied Nestle's attempts in North America to secure new water sources for bottled water brands like Poland Spring. Just this week BusinessWeek documented one town's struggles in A Town Torn Apart by Nestle (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_15/b4079042498703.htm). This coverage comes on the heels of major congressional hearings that have called into question Nestle's bottling practices at sites across the country.

North American campaigns to wean cities, restaurants, and other establishments from bottled water, such as Think Outside the Bottle, also appear to be taking their toll on Nestle's sales. In the recent article, Nestle Loses Sales as Alice Waters Bans Bottled Water (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&;refer=news&sid=aHgE5mVQHAVM), Bloomberg reported that Nestle water unit's operating profit growth will shrink by half in 2008. The backdrop to this is an overall downturn in market growth in the United States.

"When other businesses, including world-class restaurants, begin pointing to Nestle products as wasteful, bad for the environment, and unnecessary, it doesn't paint the rosiest picture for investors," said Gigi Kellett, national director for Think Outside the Bottle, a campaign of Corporate Accountability International. "Nestle can use its shareholders' meeting to start explaining how it will stop practices that involve strong-arming communities out of their most precious resource."

  Corporate Accountability International is calling on Nestle to:

  -- reveal the sources and sites of the water used for bottling;


-- publicly report breaches in bottled water quality comparable to reports by public water system;

-- and stop threatening local control of water when siting and operating bottled water plants.

In concert with Nestle's annual shareholders' meeting, Corporate Accountability International has launched a website dedicated to exposing Nestle abuses at http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1624.cfm.

The website provides a link to a Polaris Institute map of North American bottling sites and documents three community struggles including:

Fryeburg, Maine. Locals call the water source the Ward's Brook Aquifer, but the end product is called Poland Spring. The bottling plant's impact on the aquifer has 90-year-old Howard Dearborn and his neighbors waging a campaign to return Fryeburg's water to public control. Read the story at http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1698.cfm.

Mecosta County, Michigan. When Nestle wanted to build a bottling plant on the shores of a wildlife sanctuary, locals said enough is enough. But the corporation is challenging the community's right to protect this valued natural area and the essential resource that lies beneath it. Read the story at http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1699.cfm.

For more information on Think Outside the Bottle, community struggles, and for facts about bottled water, visit http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1624.cfm.

  CONTACT:
  Nick Guroff, +1-617-695-2525, nguroff@stopcorporateabuse.org
  Sara Joseph, +1-617-447-2527, sjoseph@stopcorporateabuse.org


Corporate Accountability International