Coke may not tap France, Germany for Dasani

Close on the heels of withdrawing its entire supply of Dasani bottled water from the UK retailers Coca Cola has now decided to postpone the launch of the controversial bottled water in France and Germany.

Recent quality tests for tap and bottled waters confirmed high levels of a suspected carcinogen.

The decision to "postpone" the reintroduction of Dasani bottled water in the UK and its launch in France and Germany follows an earlier controversy in which the company confirmed the product was purified tap water from its factory outside London.

Dasani is the second largest selling brand of bottled water in the US and the decision to withdraw it from European markets was confirmed by a company statement on Wednesday evening which said: "The Coca-Cola Company Europe, Eurasia, Middle East (EEME) announced today that it has reviewed its plans for the European water category.

"Following the voluntary withdrawal in Great Britain last week of Dasani due to a quality issue, it has decided not to reintroduce Dasani into Great Britain at this time."

It added: "For the present, Coca-Cola Great Britain will focus on its existing brands and will continue to innovate across all beverage categories.

"Although this is an isolated incident in Great Britain, the Coca-Cola Company EEME has also decided to postpone the introduction of the Dasani brand in France and Germany, as the timing is no longer considered optimal."

In the first week of March, UK's Food Standards Agency launched an investigation after it discovered that the source for Dasani was the water mains supply to its factory in Kent.

It was during the FSA investigations that potentially carcinogenic bromate was discovered in some samples although Coca Cola now says that the decision to withdraw the product was entirely a precautionary measure.

The FSA said Coca-Cola had informed it that some samples of Dasani had been found to contain higher than the permitted level of bromate.

Coca-Cola said it had not been ordered to withdraw the product, but had decided to do so because it did not meet the regulations.

It was believed that more than 500,000 bottles were withdrawn from sale.

Bromate is an unwanted byproduct in the water purification process called "ozonation," where ozone gases used to "disinfect" water react with naturally occurring salts called bromide ions.

The editor of Marketing Week, Stuart Smith, described the recall as "disastrous" for Coca-Cola's strategy to move away from what he described as an over-reliance on fizzy drinks.

He commented,  "The issue for Coca-Cola was brand prestige, the idea that when you buy a Coca-Cola product you buy quality. This has been kicked away."