Perrier Case Study

“Over responding to a Crisis”

Perrier On Top
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In late 1989 Ronald Davis the President of Perrier’s U.S.
Operations was extremely happy since Perrier’s U.S. sales had risen from $40 million to more than $800 million at retail 

At the same time in May of 1989 in an issue of Fortune the company was depicted as one of six companies that compete best

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Fortune quotes, “These are companies you don’t want to come up against in your worst nightmare. In the business they are in, they amass crushing market share.”

Perrier on Top
 Perrier was globally known for its quality due to low mineral content (particularly sodium)
 This occurred because the water spent very little time filtering itself through minerals
 While the water flows underground it met with different gasses which allows the water to capture its well known fizz
 Not only was Perrier known for being the best,
Perrier owned nine other brands including:
Poland Spring, Great Bear, Calistoga, and Ozarka

Perrier on Top
 Bottled water was the fastest growing segment of the U.S. beverage industry
 Perrier controlled 24% of the total US. Bottled-water business  Perrier was dominating almost 50% of the imported bottle water sector
 Competition like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and AnheuserBusch was hardly affecting the sales of Perrier

Perrier Takes a Hit
 On a Friday , February 1990 news reached Perrier’s executive suite that traces of benzene had been found in its bottled water
 Ronald Davis, President of Perrier Group of America ordered an intensive recall of all Perrier bottles in
North America
 Few days later Perrier S.A. expanded the recall to the rest of the world
 Good? Or Bad?

Perrier Caught in a Lie


At first the excuse given by Perrier officials was that the contamination occurred because an employee mistakenly used cleaning fluid containing benzene to clean the production-line machinery that fills bottles for North
America

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Traces of benzene were now found in bottles of water in