The reality of bottled water profit is that unless you are a retailer, the only way you can make any money is based on insane volume. That requires cash to cover production, machines, warehousing, transportation (this is huge) and terms for your customers. Big box loves to pay in 60-90 days. Try that on for size when you are making pennies on the dollar.

Similar to many other categories, the bottled water industry is experiencing a transition into automated manufacturing. This is putting a ton of the mom and pop bottling businesses out. Its become too difficult for them to compete against 24/7 automated production lines that the big dogs are running. The margins continue to be driven further and further into bare minimum/cost threshold by the buyers as they leverage it to drive in customers(door busters). There is a ton of pressure here and its not letting up. The smaller guys can't afford to put the cash up to secure the new hardware and are closing up shop left and right.

Costco sells bottled water at near break even as a door buster. This strategy is very similar to what you see in traditional grocery stores where Arrowhead or semi-generic brand is selling for $3.50 a case of 24 bottles.

Don't get me wrong - folks like Nestle, Fiji, Smart Water etc. all do well but there is serious cash invested in those efforts. The small and mid size players basically struggle to carve out an existence.