I stopped at a convenience store yesterday to get a bottle of water. Of course they had 682 brands to choose from priced in 3 tiers ($1.09, $1.29, $1.59) and I grabbed one with an attractive label in the middle tier.
When I got out to the car I took a closer look and the brand was “FIJI”. Closer inspection revealed that the water actually came from some well or spring or something in Fiji.
How is this possible?
Do they load up a container ship with water and ship this stuff all the way to the US? I just find it hard to believe that they can then compete with some piss water out of a tap in Philadelphia. I mean its not even in the top tier at a convenience store.
Does anyone know anything about the water business?
Not especially, but given that I can buy melted Scandinavian glacier water at inflated prices here in Australia, I’d guess it relies heavily on a basic tenet of business: never underestimate the pretentious wanker market.
i share your confusion about Fiji water. I’ve been to Fiji, and it strikes me as being fairly arid. The water was quite restricted on the island that i was staying on and I drank bottled water supplemented by rain water stored in a cistern. A substantial portion of the main island is highlands, so I guess that is a source of water, but even there, water was fairly scarce.
I imagine that Sierra Nevada water would be much cheaper and taste better. It was amusing to note that the bottled water in Fiji was Fiji brand, but was pretty cheap. I have not and never will buy Fiji brand water stateside unless there is some sort of catastrophe and that’s all they have at the local supermarket.
By the way, Fijians are about the nicest people on the planet. I suppose it helps that they are one of the few indigenous peoples to totally dominate their country.
So, apparently Fiji Water is Fijian aquifer water “untouched by man.” From Wikipedia:
I found the opinion piece linked at the bottom of the page interesting.
ETA: For the price, I think Fiji Water is one of the better tasting waters available. And I like the shape of the bottle; it tends to be less prone to tipping than skinny round bottles.
How do they compete? I thought that Fiji water cost more than bottled water from local sources. At least in my grocery store the price is higher. It’s considered a “premium” bottled water.
Why do people buy it? Nice picture on the bottle, and a higher price will make some people view it as being “better” or “classier”. The origin (a remote Pacific island) conjures happy thoughts in the mind of the buyer.
The thing that I wonder when I see Fiji water is:
How much of a contribution to global warming does it make?
They have to load up a containers with little water bottles, fill a ship, and then transport them to North America, then across North America, all to get the little bottles to my store, in a place where we have more water than we know what to do with, where perfectly clean, tasty, cold water that hasn’t spent months in plastic will pour freely from my tap.
Or are you under some sort of mistaken impression that Russians are indigenous to the area of Eastern Europe which is named for the Rus, a Scandinavian band that conquered and settled in the area, and became the dominate rulers? Or prehaps you are mistakenly believing that the Slavic peoples are indigenous to that area?
There was a store in Hong Kong that sold water shipped in from the US. I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would give a shit where their H2O comes from, but clearly there’s a market for ridiculously marked-up, high-carbon-impact bullshit.
Well. I can see that my information is seriously outdated. I was there in 2002 when I thought the government was dominated by indigenous Fijians, instituting policy that severely discriminated against non-indigenous peoples. Upon Googling, I see that there has been at least one coup and several significant governmental changes since then. I seem to recall that Vijay Singh, a native Fijian of Indian descent had to fight a fair amount of discrimination, although I believe he is an icon in Fiji any time he is victorious.
Nevertheless. I believe indigenous Fijians remain a major power in Fiji government unlike most other native American and Pacific peoples.
Yes, along with the Mormons, Jews, and Five Secret Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs.
That raises questions of how monolithic the Fijian people are and whether each group of them still occupies the same land they historically (and pre-historically) did, which comes back to how we want to subdivide each group of people (and people in general).
And they all built massive rafts and then flying boats to get to Kiev. Because they weren’t freezing in the winter.
