Importation of mineral water shoots up by 20%

The importation of mineral waters from abroad has shot up from €3 million to €3.6 million between 2007 and 2009.
The sharpest rise was registered in the importation of still natural mineral water, which has shot up by 26% from €1.9 million to €2.4 million.

The importation of carbonated natural water has remained stable at €1 to €1.1 while the importation of table water has dropped from €77,888 to €71, 364.

While Malta has its own equivalents of table water which are produced either from purified reverse osmosis or extracted from bore holes, it lacks its own source of natural mineral water.

According to EU law mineral water must come from a protected source and cannot undergo any treatment, except filtration, to remove sand particles. Therefore what goes into the bottle is the same as what comes out of the ground.

On the other hand table water is defined as bottled water that comes from more than one source, including the public water supply. Treatment of the water is permitted to ensure it meets compositional or microbiological requirements, which are governed by law.
The marketing of Maltese bottled water as ‘ natural mineral water’ is illegal because none of the local brands match European Union criteria to be recognised as such.

A survey published on sister newspaper Illum in 2009 showed that 63% rely on bottled water as the main supply for their drinking water. The survey showed that Maltese brand of table water Kristal is the most popular, followed by the San Michel brand which is derived from the potable water supply.

But the survey showed that around 17% opted for imported brands.

Bottled water sold in Malta generally consists in treated water bought from the public supply, as is the case for the San Michel brand, or a mixture of groundwater and tap water, as is the case with the Kristal brand.

Aqua Azzura and Gocce are exclusively derived from groundwater, which is extracted for free from groundwater sources. Irrespective of their origin, all these brands are marketed as table water.

Maltese tap water is totally safe to drink, even if its taste is negatively affected by high levels of chloride and sodium. Tap water is regularly tested for chemical, physical and microbiological parameters listed in the Food Safety Act, and nitrates levels, which posed a serious health problem in the 1980s. Ground water is blended with reverse osmosis water to ensure that nitrate levels never surpass EU imposed levels.

Ironically while a bottle of imported natural mineral water costs at least 50 cents, the same amount of tap water costs less than a cent. US studies have found the total energy required for bottled water production was as much as 2,000 times the energy cost of producing tap water.