It supported its launch with an advertising campaign emphasising vitality rather than medical benefits.More and more people around the world are recognising the health benefits of drinking water and are showing their preference for the taste and convenience of bottled waters. This is reflected in an annual growth rate of 9 per cent since 1997, with the global bottled water market totalling 126 billion litres in 2002.Helen McCormack. Proust'S Madeleine is one of the most famous cakes in literature, transporting the narrator Marcel to his childhood. By the mid-nineteenth century the development of railways and industrial production techniques were gradually transforming the business.Bottling methods changed as consumption spread, and by the mid-twentieth century, global production had climbed to several hundred million bottles a year.Vittel revolutionised the market in 1968 by launching the first plastic bottle - aimed at more general public consumption. It was bottled in glass or stoneware, with porcelain or cork stoppers. According to legend, after crossing the Pyrenees, Hannibal, the general of the Carthaginian army, rested his troops and elephants at Les Bouillens in France, the location of the Perrier spring.Vittel was the first company to bottle water.

In 1903, Vittel Grande Source and H?r natural mineral waters were declared "d'int?t public" ("of public interest") by the French authorities.In the early days, bottled natural mineral water was the privilege of captains of industry, politicians and royalty. Rita Clifton, chairwoman of the brand consultancy Interbrand, which has provided consultancy for a number of mineral water producers, said: "The bottled-water market in Britain is all about the purity of the source, the mythology surrounding it."If anyone told you 20 or 25 years ago that the British would pay 50p or even £1.50 for a bottle of water, you would have found it a ridiculous notion."The origins of bottled water can be traced back at least as far as the Romans, who developed sources as they established their empire. However, a study by the University of Geneva last year found that bottled water was often no healthier or safer to drink than tap water.With tap water the norm in Britain, bottled water is marketed on its origins as much as its purity. Our enthusiasm for drinking bottled water cannot be dampened, despite its cost, and reports questioning its benefits over tap water. Britons drank more than 2.1 billion litres last year alone.A recent report from Which? magazine found that the Waterside Inn restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, wins the award for the priciest bottle - 75cl of Perrier or Badoit will set you back £5.The bottled water market is the fastest growing drinks industry in the world and manufacturers spend millions of pounds on marketing.

It may also be, marginally, more environmentally friendly.A SHORT GUIDE TO BOTTLED WATEROnce the preserve of the bourgeoisie, bottled water is now a huge seller, worth £1.2bn a year. The company said it had no intention of starting new talks and Perrier would be sold off unless the CGT caved in and accepted all the job losses.Meanwhile, it said, its Vittel and Contrex plants in eastern France would be "unified" into one company - clearly implying that Nestl?ntended to concentrate all its French water interests there.There have been several other high-profile defections - or threatened defections - of foreign companies from France in recent months. The issue of "relocation" - to avoid high taxes in France and, up to a point, the 35-hour week - has become a subject of anguished political debate. Other CGT members said they were calling Nestl? bluff; they knew the company would never sell the Perrier brand.It appears that they may be wrong. More moderate trades union leaders spoke to the press yesterday with tears in their eyes, pleading with Nestl?nd the CGT to reopen negotiations on redundancies. "I have liberated myself from dependence on one spring and the economic and political burdens that that brings," he said.In other words, the future and growth in the bottled water market is to go for generic products with an imposed taste, based on purifying and adding minerals to almost any old water. It was rejected overwhelmingly by members of the militant CGT union federation, which represents 80 per cent of Perrier employees.A CGT member, Jean-Paul Soulier, said that he and his colleagues rejected the plan because it was "clear that the factory was buggered" if the workforce was reduced again.