Norfolk Pure vs. bottled water

Taste test results may surprise bottled water devotees

The bottle is labeled “Norfolk Pure”, and it is the same top quality drinking water available at faucets throughout the City.  In recent blind taste tests between Norfolk’s municipal tap water and a leading bottled water, 71% of confirmed bottled water drinkers chose our own Norfolk Pure as the better tasting.

Norfolk Utilities continues to promote the City’s excellent Drinking water with the “Norfolk Pure Challenge”, a comparative Taste test that asks citizens to choose the better tasting of two unidentified waters.  Unknown to the testers, the two waters are their municipal tap water and a popular bottled water.

The Norfolk Pure Challenge series began the first day of Drinking Water Week, May 2, in the Utilities customer service lobby. That day, waterworks operators and water chemists conducted the tests with 108 customer volunteers and answered questions about Norfolk’s drinking water. Each customer was also given a bottle of Norfolk Pure, the convenient portable version of the water that comes out of their taps every day.

The Norfolk Pure taste test was a very interesting way to engage people in a discussion about drinking water — so interesting, in fact, that the Department took it to two other venues, the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters Mini Grand Prix and the City’s annual Wellness Fair.

The taste test would probably not pass inspection by professional polling standards, but it yielded some very interesting - and positive - results.

After answering a few questions about their drinking water preferences and tasting well-chilled Waters A and B, the customers were asked to choose the one that tasted best.

A total of 225 people took the test. Of the 225, 42% preferred the taste of the municipal tap water over the other water, and 10% said they could not discern a taste difference between the two.

While a nearly fifty-fifty split does not seem that surprising, a further breakdown of the statistics is even more interesting. Of those who said they prefer bottled water and drink it most often, 71% chose municipal tap water as the better tasting water of the two.

“The most fun we had was telling people that the water they chose as the best was municipal tap water,” said Peg Nelson, Utilities Public Information Specialist. “Many could not believe it.”

Indeed, the remarks included “For real?”,  “Get out!”, and “I would never have thought that was tap water.”

“It was great to then hand them a bottle of Norfolk Pure and tell them that it, too, is the same great-tasting water that comes from their taps,” Nelson continued.

What was the objective of all this?

“The advertising associated with the bottled water industry has convinced much of the public that the taste and quality of municipal tap water is inferior to bottled water,” said Nelson. “This is one way to convince people differently, one customer at a time.”

The Norfolk Pure Challenge series will continue through the summer.

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