Americans are drinking more bottled water than any other packaged beverage –– outselling carbonated soft drinks, by volume, for the first time in history, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the Beverage Marketing Corporation (BMC) announced. Healthy, convenient and safe, bottled water is America’s favorite packaged drink, according to the latest data from BMC.
Bottled water sales increased by 10 percent in 2016, and now total $16 billion (wholesale). In 2016, total US bottled water consumption grew by 8.6 percent to 12.8 billion gallons, up from 11.8 billion gallons in 2015. In addition, per-capita consumption is up 7.7 percent in 2016, with every person in America drinking an average of 39.3 gallons of bottled water last year, while average intake of carbonated soft drinks slipped to about 38.5 gallons, BMC statistics show. “BMC data from the past two decades shows that a large part of the sales growth for bottled water is the result of a consumer shift from sugar-sweetened beverages to bottled water,”said Joe Doss, IBWA President and CEO.