Dasani
Dasani is a brand of bottled water created by the Coca-Cola Company, launched in 1999. It is one of many brands of Coca-Cola bottled water sold around the world. The product is filtered and bottled.
Marketing
United States
Coca-Cola uses water from local municipal water supplies, filters it using the process of reverse osmosis, and adds trace amounts of minerals, including magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride and sodium chloride.Coca-Cola announced that they would be distributing Dasani water in new packaging comprising 30% plant-derived plastics. Unlike other plant-based packaging, the bottles are compatible with standard recycling plants and represent up to a 25% reduction in carbon emissions compared to standard water bottles, though this still represents an energy consumption two thousand times that of tap water.
Canada
Dasani was launched in all provinces of Canada except Quebec in 2000, a year after launching in the United States. The brand was made available in Quebec shortly afterwards, in April 2001.There are six common Dasani bottle sizes sold in Canada: 355 mL, 500mL, 591 mL, 710 mL, 1 L, and 1.5 L. Bottles are sold individually and in packs of 6, 12, and 24.
The first Dasani bottling plant in Canada was in Calgary, Alberta. A second plant was later opened in Brampton, Ontario. The Calgary and Brampton plants produce Coca-Cola's plain-water and sugar-water products. The company's administrative and marketing activities continue to be based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dasani has <35 ppm of total dissolved mineral salts.
Latin America
Dasani was introduced to the Brazilian market in mid-2003, renamed as Aquarius. It was introduced to the Chilean market in 2005, including releases in regular, lemon and tangerine flavors. It was released in Colombia in late 2005 with their three regular flavors. In 2005, Dasani was introduced in the Argentinian market with the flavours peach, lemon, citrus and regular. It was also released under the name Ciel Dasani in Mexico in four flavours: lemon-cucumber, papaya-carrot, grapefruit and mandarin-green tea, but it was discontinued in 2006. It was also released in Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Honduras.United Kingdom
Dasani was launched in the UK on 10 February 2004. The product launch was labelled "a disaster", a "fiasco", and a "PR catastrophe".Prior to the launch, an article in The Grocer trade magazine had stated that the source of the Dasani brand water was treated tap water from Sidcup, a suburban area on the outskirts of London. By early March 2004, the mainstream press had picked up the story and it became widely reported that Sidcup tap water, after being processed, was being sold under the Dasani brand name in the UK. Although Coca-Cola never stated that the water was being sourced from a spring or other natural sources, they marketed it as being especially "pure". This led the Food Standards Agency to request Hillingdon trading standards officers to launch an investigation into whether the claim was accurate.
On 18 March 2004, UK authorities found a batch was contaminated with levels of bromate, a suspected human carcinogen, in a concentration above the legal limit for sale, although the FSA announced there was "no immediate risk to public health" from the contamination. Coca-Cola immediately recalled half a million bottles and withdrew the "Dasani" brand from the UK market.
The launch, and later contamination scandal, drew comparisons in the press with a 1992 episode of popular sitcom Only Fools and Horses, "Mother Nature's Son" in which lead character Del Boy hatches a scheme selling tap water bottled in his council flat in Peckham—nine miles from Sidcup. As a result, Coca-Cola cancelled plans to expand the brand to continental Europe.
In line with the 2012 Summer Olympics and being the official drink sponsor, Coca-Cola decided not to reintroduce the Dasani brand to the UK market, and purchased the Morpeth, Northumberland-based Abbey Well bottler in 2008, branded under the Schweppes brand name, to provide a locally sourced water brand for the event. To meet Olympic branding regulations, Abbey Well water was labeled as "Still Water" for on-camera appearances during the Games.