The Dark Side of Fiji Water

Saturday, August 22, 2009

The producers of Fiji Water like to tell their customers that drinking their bottled water saves them from having to go all the way to the Pacific island nation just to enjoy it. Not making the trek is good for others reasons too—like avoiding the paranoid military junta now running the country and the police who are apt to stop anyone for questioning, even for just sending emails back home.

 
Anna Lenzer of Mother Jones found this out the hard way during her reporting in Fiji, where she was hauled in for questioning after corresponding with someone at a local Internet café. The interrogation included accusations that she was working for a rival to Fiji Water. “It would be good to come here and try to take away Fiji Water’s business, wouldn’t it?” asked the officer, according to Lenzer.
 
Despite its high retail cost, Fiji is the leading imported water into the U.S., ahead of competitors like Evian. Fiji marketing has positioned the company as “green” and charitable, and the water of choice for the cool and powerful alike, from Mos Def to President Obama.
 
What Fiji’s marketing doesn’t tell consumers, Lenzer revealed, is that people living on the island risk exposure to typhoid because of their own unsanitary water supplies. Or that Fiji water bottles are made from Chinese plastic in a diesel-fueled manufacturing plant.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle (by Anna Lenzer, Mother Jones)

Comments

fiji-water 14 years ago
As President of FIJI Water, I encourage readers to read our response to the article, which we have posted on our blog: http://blog.fijigreen.com/2009/08/fiji-water-responds-to-mother-jones-article/ I also encourage readers to post any questions they might have on our blog, where all reasonable queries will be responded to by employee representatives. We strongly disagree with the author’s premise that because we are in business in Fiji that somehow legitimizes a military dictatorship. We bought FIJI Water in November 2004, when Fiji was governed by a democratically elected government. FIJI Water does not nor will ever actively support the government of the day. The government does not speak for us and we cannot and will not speak for the government. What we can do is try to help the socio-economic development of Fiji as much as we can by running a world-class company that provides much-needed jobs, health care, education, and clean drinking water to the people who live in the villages surrounding our company and the greater community of Fiji. John Cochran President, FIJI Water

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