Perrier is the best known sparkling mineral water in the world. The iconic French product was introduced to the global market by an Englishman, St John Harmsworth.

St John Harmsworth discovers Perrier
William Albert St John Harmsworth (1876 – 1933) was born in London, the son of an unsuccessful alcoholic barrister and a strong-willed mother.

Harmsworth was a slight and nervous child. He attended Henley House School at St John’s Wood, London, where he was a pupil of H G Wells (1866 – 1946), later the author of The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898). Whilst not academically-minded, Harmsworth grew to be athletic, charming, and likeable.

Harmsworth joined Amalgamated Press, a newspaper empire created by his elder brother Alfred Harmsworth (1865 – 1922), as a director. The company published the Daily Mail, which was the highest-selling newspaper in the world.

Alfred Harmsworth suggested that his brother travel to France in order to learn the language in 1902. He visited a carbonated spring at Les Bouillens, Vergeze, in the South of France, where Dr Louis Eugene Perrier operated a commercial spa. Perrier also bottled a small amount of the water for his guests and some local sales.

Harmsworth believed in the potential for the bottled water, which was lighter, crisper and had a lower sodium content than most waters sold on the British market at the time. To the horror of his family, he sold his shares in Amalgamated Press in order to acquire the Les Bouillens estate in early 1903.

Harmsworth closed down the spa, which catered to a declining market, and began to distribute the bottled water, which he branded as Perrier. It was sold at Monte Carlo and throughout the South of France during the 1903 season.

Following this successful trial, a London office was established at 45 and 46 New Bond Street. The water targeted the premium segment of the market, and was sold at the Savoy, Claridge’s and the Berkeley hotels, as well as classic City of London pubs and restaurants such as Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and Slaters.

Perrier was advertised as an ideal mixer for whisky. Sir Thomas Lipton (1846 – 1931), a friend of Harmsworth, introduced the water to King Edward VII, who granted it a Royal Warrant in 1904.

The market for imported European sparkling water had been well-established in Britain by Apollinaris since the 1870s. Harmsworth packaged his water in a distinctive bulbous green bottle, inspired by an Indian club used for exercises.

French culture was considered aspirational, and the water may have benefited from an assumed link with the champagne houses of Perrier-Jouët and Laurent-Perrier, to which it had no affiliation. Perhaps to encourage the association, the water was originally marketed with the “champagne of table waters” slogan.

The London office was relocated to 45 and 47 Wigmore Street from 1905.

Harmsworth was involved in a tragic motor accident in 1906. He broke his spine and was permanently paralysed from the waist down. A keen sportsman, Harmsworth was able to maintain his interest in swimming, and had a pool installed at his London address of 7 Hyde Park Terrace.

United States sales were pursued from 1907.

Perrier was registered as a private limited company to acquire the share capital of La Compagnie de la Source Perrier in 1908.

Perrier was granted a Royal Warrant from King George V in 1911. Millions of bottles were sold every year by 1912.

A glassworks was established in Vergeze from 1912.

Perrier was well-established as a rival to Apollinaris by 1914. Perrier was able to win market share from Apollinaris during the First World War by using advertisements that highlighted the German origins of its competitor.

Much of production was distributed to the Allied armies in France, Salonika and Egypt during the First World War.

Harmsworth negotiated a contract to become the exclusive supplier of bottled water to the restaurant cars of Wagons-Lits in France and Germany in 1927.

The London office had been relocated to Bear Wharf, 27 Bankside by 1931.

By 1933 Harmsworth had a small stake in the French company, the Compagnie de la Source Perrier, and a large holding in the English company Perrier Limited, which held the British distribution rights.

Death of St John Harmsworth and the Second World War
Harmsworth died in 1933 and left an estate valued at £82,976. His estate was left to his brother Vyvyan George Harmsworth (1881 – 1957) and his three sisters.

Perrier Ltd had an authorised capital of £110,000 in 1935. The directors were Vyvyan Harmsworth, M Harmsworth and H Banks, who had been secretary to St John Harmsworth.

Perrier had never been hugely profitable, and the rest of the family lacked the faith in the brand that Harmsworth had. The British and Irish distribution rights to Perrier had been licensed to Apollinaris by May 1939.

The Germans invaded France in 1940, and company capital was transferred to the United States to disguise the British origins of the firm. The Second World War isolated Perrier from its traditional markets of the British Empire, the USA and the French colonies. Sales to the German army represented 40 percent of turnover between 1941 and 1944.

Gustave Leven acquires Perrier
Following the war, Perrier was loss-making and required substantial investment. The Harmsworth family hired Gustave Leven (1915 – 2008), a Parisian stockbroker, to find a buyer for the business in 1946.

Leven visited the bottling plant, which was in need of reorganisation. He witnessed workers fill bottles by plunging them into the spring by hand, and sometimes using their feet to help put the bottle caps on. However, he identified the Perrier brand as strong, with considerable scope for improvement. Leven acquired Perrier with four partners for £100,000.

Ten million bottles were sold in 1946. Annual sales had risen to 150 million bottles by 1952.

Perrier was able to gain considerable market share in France by introducing mass advertising to a previously staid industry.

Perrier was the largest mineral water bottler in the world by 1961. It held 25 percent of the French market.

The bottling plant could produce nearly 2.5 million bottles of Perrier within 16 hours by 1967. The company held half of the French market.

Leven installed a glass bottle manufacturing plant at Vergeze in 1973.

Perrier was distributed in Britain by Schweppes and Grand Metropolitan by the early 1970s. The British market was limited to a few high-end establishments, as its distributors did not believe that there was a significant demand for bottled water. Perrier entered into British supermarket distribution for itself from 1974. Six million bottles were sold in Britain in 1978.

Leven then turned to the underdeveloped United States market to further increase sales. Three million bottles had been sold there in 1976. A large marketing push was introduced in 1977, with a price cut of 20 to 30 percent and a television advertising campaign featuring the actor Orson Welles. United States sales had risen to 200 million bottles by 1979. In Britain and the United States, Perrier tapped into an increasingly aspirational culture, and a growing health and fitness movement.

Rising sales in the United States saw a second factory opened at Vergeze in 1978. The new factory had an annual production capacity of nearly 400 million bottles, adding to the existing factory’s capacity of 350 million bottles.

The Vergeze site employed 2,500 people by 1983 and Perrier was sold in 119 countries. 25 percent of sales were in the United States by 1984.

Perrier acquired the Buxton mineral water company in Britain in 1987. Perrier held 60 percent of the British bottled water market by 1988. Nearly 100 million bottles a year were sold in the UK by 1990.

The brand peaked in 1989, when 1.2 billion bottles were sold, with half exported to the United States.

The benzene scare
In March 1990 it was reported that Perrier contained a minimal amount of a carcinogen because a charcoal filter meant to catch naturally occurring benzene from the spring had not been replaced.

The United States Food & Drug Administration declared that the benzene content was harmless. A cancer specialist stated that an individual would have to consume a quart of Perrier every day for an entire lifetime to consume a harmful amount of benzene.

Despite this, Leven decided that a total product recall was essential in order to preserve the reputation of the brand. 160 million bottles were withdrawn from 120 countries, for which the company was not insured.

Production levels dropped by one third in the wake of the scandal. Leven was replaced as chairman of Perrier in June 1990.

Perrier had lost over half of its United States market share by January 1991, due to its limited distribution during the product recall. The poor availability of Perrier allowed rival mineral water brands such as Evian to win market share. In Britain, Scottish mineral water producers such as Highland Spring and Strathmore won market share at the expense of Perrier.

1991-2 sales in the United States and Britain were at half their 1989 levels, due to the damage inflicted upon the Perrier brand by the benzene scare.

Nestle acquires Perrier
Nestle acquired Perrier in March 1992, in a deal which valued the company at £1.4 billion (US$2.7 billion). The acquisition transformed Nestle into the largest mineral water producer in the world. Nestle believed it could turn around the fortunes of the struggling business.

Perrier acquired San Pellegrino, its Italian rival, in 1997.

Nestle struggled against a powerful union at the Perrier plant. With rising sales, Leven had acquiesced to union requests throughout the 1980s. Faced with stagnant sales, Nestle found that it was unable to continue to accommodate union demands. Nestle failed to make a profit from Perrier between 1992 and 2004.

Production levels crossed the one billion bottle threshold again in 2013. According to data from Euromonitor, Perrier held six percent of the global carbonated bottled water market by value in 2016.

Nestle installed a new production line at the Perrier plant in 2017. Three more lines were added in 2020, bringing the total to 15.