Bottled Water Now The Beverage Of Choice Among Americans

Nevin Barich

Nevin Barich

LOS ANGELES , March 20, 2017 () – About four years ago, I decided to make a change when it came to the beverages I consumed. My entire life, I had been an avid soda drinker. As a kid I had a weight problem, and chugging down regular Cokes and Pepsis all the time didn’t help matters. WThen when I decided once and for all to shed the weight, I switched almost exclusively to diet soda so that I could still enjoy these beverages without all of the calories.

But as I got older, deep down I knew I had to make a further change. Sure, diet soda was helping me lay off the empty calories. But drinking it almost exclusively was also starting to make me feel sluggish and off-kilter. Not to mention that increasingly, more news stories were discussing the potential effects of the chemicals found regularly in diet beverages. So I made the decision in 2013 to start drinking more bottled water.

Four years later, drinking bottled water over soda has become the norm. According to research and consulting firm Beverage Marketing Corp., bottled water surpassed carbonated soft drinks to become the largest beverage category by volume in the United States in 2016. The shift comes amid widespread concerns about the health effects of sugary beverages.

Bottled -water consumption in the U.S. reached 39.3 gallons per capita last year, while carbonated soft drinks slipped to 38.5 gallons, according to Beverage Marketing said. In contrast, per capita soda consumption regularly exceeded 50 gallons in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Total bottled water volume rose about 9% to 12.8 billion gallons in 2016, compared with a year earlier.

I still drink my fair share of diet soda, and although it’s now in second place, overall American carbonated soft drink consumption remains high. But for me and so many others, water is our beverage of choice now. Expect that trend to continue for the forseeable future.

Nevin Barich is the Food and Beverage Analyst for Industry Intelligence Inc. and is also Menuism’s fast food expert. Email him at Nevin.Barich@industryintel.com or follow him on Twitter.

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