Nestle CEO Refuses To Move Bottling Plant Out Of California Despite Drought, Offers Another Solution

Nestle has been on the receiving end of a lot of flack when they continued to bottle water in California, despite the state’s massive drought.

In a recent interview with Tim Brown, CEO of Nestle Waters North America, he has no plans to stop bottling water.

“Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I would.”

This was Brown’s response to NASA hydrologist Jay Famiglietti after the latter asked if Brown would consider relocating his company’s bottling operations outside of the drought-ridden state.

According to SCPR, Brown said that if he stopped bottling water in California customers would flock to another brand.

Brown is, however, actively looking for solutions during the state’s drought. Nestles has reportedly invested $7 million on technology that would extract water from milk production to be used in the factory’s operations.

Since the plant has cooling towers for milk that use water, the change would allow them to reuse and recycle that water instead of allowing it to go to waste. Brown says that this step will save about 63 million gallons of water a year.

The Modesto factory will finish upgrading it’s water-friendly tech by 2016.

Currently, the company produces water bottle brands including Arrowhead, Pure Life, Deer Park and Poland Spring.

Photo: Nestle