Corporate Accountability International: Community Protests, Slowing Market Hang Over...

Corporate Accountability International: Community Protests, Slowing Market
Hang Over Nestle Shareholders' Meeting

BOSTON, April 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today in Lausanne, Switzerland,
Nestle executives and shareholders had the opportunity to reflect on a year
that has been marked by a growing antipathy toward the corporation's signature
product -- bottled water.

Community protests over water rights have stymied Nestle's attempts in North
America to secure new water sources for bottled water brands like Poland
Spring. Just this week BusinessWeek documented one town's struggles in A Town
Torn Apart by Nestle
(http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_15/b4079042498703.htm). This
coverage comes on the heels of major congressional hearings that have called
into question Nestle's bottling practices at sites across the country.

North American campaigns to wean cities, restaurants, and other establishments
from bottled water, such as Think Outside the Bottle, also appear to be taking
their toll on Nestle's sales. In the recent article, Nestle Loses Sales as
Alice Waters Bans Bottled Water
(http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=news&sid=aHgE5mVQHAVM),
Bloomberg reported that Nestle water unit's operating profit growth will
shrink by half in 2008. The backdrop to this is an overall downturn in market
growth in the United States.

"When other businesses, including world-class restaurants, begin pointing to
Nestle products as wasteful, bad for the environment, and unnecessary, it
doesn't paint the rosiest picture for investors," said Gigi Kellett, national
director for Think Outside the Bottle, a campaign of Corporate Accountability
International. "Nestle can use its shareholders' meeting to start explaining
how it will stop practices that involve strong-arming communities out of their
most precious resource."

Corporate Accountability International is calling on Nestle to:

-- reveal the sources and sites of the water used for bottling;
-- publicly report breaches in bottled water quality comparable to reports by
public water system;
-- and stop threatening local control of water when siting and operating
bottled water plants.

In concert with Nestle's annual shareholders' meeting, Corporate
Accountability International has launched a website dedicated to exposing
Nestle abuses at http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1624.cfm.

The website provides a link to a Polaris Institute map of North American
bottling sites and documents three community struggles including:

Fryeburg, Maine. Locals call the water source the Ward's Brook Aquifer, but
the end product is called Poland Spring. The bottling plant's impact on the
aquifer has 90-year-old Howard Dearborn and his neighbors waging a campaign to
return Fryeburg's water to public control. Read the story at
http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1698.cfm.

Mecosta County, Michigan. When Nestle wanted to build a bottling plant on the
shores of a wildlife sanctuary, locals said enough is enough. But the
corporation is challenging the community's right to protect this valued
natural area and the essential resource that lies beneath it. Read the story
at http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1699.cfm.

For more information on Think Outside the Bottle, community struggles, and for
facts about bottled water, visit
http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/cms/page1624.cfm.

CONTACT:
Nick Guroff, +1-617-695-2525, nguroff@stopcorporateabuse.org
Sara Joseph, +1-617-447-2527, sjoseph@stopcorporateabuse.org

SOURCE Corporate Accountability International

Nick Guroff, +1-617-695-2525, nguroff@stopcorporateabuse.org, or Sara Joseph,
+1-617-447-2527, sjoseph@stopcorporateabuse.org, both of Corporate
Accountability International