Iceberg in a bottle:
The Arctic, a new Eldorado for water merchants
The Greenland ice cap is melting: an economic boon for mineral water merchants who want to bottle its icebergs, so-called pure water that is sold at Champagne prices.
“Icebergs contain water so pure that it’s a shame to see it go to waste into the salty sea. So why not drink it?”, asks Vildersboll, whose company, Inland Ice, bottles icebergs and distributes this “luxury water from Greenland” which has “the purity of prehistory”.
Flat or sparkling, this water with a “taste of a hundred thousand years ago” is sold to gastronomic restaurants or on lifestyle websites.
selling the brand Inland Ice, "luxury water from Greenland".
A more abundant and accessible resource
In return for royalties, the Greenland government grants various companies exclusive licenses over certain geographical areas to « harvest » the icebergs produced by the thawing of the glaciers. With the melting of the ice cap due to climate change, this resource is becoming more and more abundant and accessible.
A rich lode to exploit
Several companies, including from Arctic countries (Canada, Norway), have entered this market. All of them display the geographical origin and the purity of the bottled icebergs. “Iceberg Water [whose logo is a red maple leaf, the symbol of Canada] is sourced from unspoilt ice naturally detached from the Canadian Arctic ice shelf,” boasts the brand owned by the Concept Spirits company based in the Netherlands.
The water of Berg, a Canadian company based in Newfoundland, comes from “North Atlantic, Natural Iceberg. Harvesting is mostly done by hand and [in] small quantities,” according to aquamaestro.com. These claims are impossible to verify, as, for the moment, there is no Protected Designation of Origin for icebergs yet.
Water at a golden price
Svalbarði, a Norwegian company, sells water “freshly squeezed from melting icebergs” from Svalbard, the northernmost land of Norway, where polar bears live all year round: 94,95 € for a 0,75 l bottle: the price of a very good bottle of champagne!
