Is the bottled water industry integrated foward or backwards?
backwards integration means they basically buy the supply chain behind them. forward would mean they operate their own distribution or retail stores. since you’re just talking bottled water (I assume just PET bottles) they just usually lease the rights to pump water from the ground (springs, mountains) i don’t think that technically counts for backward integration unless they bought the land. if vitamin water were making its own sugar by harvesting sugar cane in haiti (or corn for corn syrup in Iowa) that is definitely backwards (but they don’t so its not). Possibly since they have their own trucks and take on the distribution function (delivering to the stores, 7-11, grocery and costco etc) this might be seen as one step of forward integration. I don’t know how many actually do this, poland spring does because i see the trucks, Vitamin water (Glaceau) was bought by Coca Cola who already owned their own distribution – so they are forward integrated although in reality they were not but
