BlueTriton, a private equity consortium that purchased Nestlé’s North American bottled water business in 2021, has announced that it is closing Canada’s largest water bottling plant in Puslinch, near Guelph, Ontario, as of early 2025.
News of the closure comes on the heels of BlueTriton completing its merger with bottled water and water dispenser company Primo Water on November 8, although the company suggests the two moves are unrelated.
Nestlé Waters North America announced in April 2024 that it had begun operating under the new corporate name of BlueTriton Brands.
Owners of the plant have been utilizing wells in Puslinch and Hillsburgh, Ontario, for bottling water at its Aberfoyle facility. They faced substantial opposition over what was viewed as unsustainable practices in the Guelph area involving the low provincial permit cost to withdraw millions of litres of water each day.
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Environmental advocacy groups such as Water Watchers, Save Our Water, and the Council of Canadians trained a critical spotlight on the water extraction operations, casting them as exploitative of finite resources, particularly in an area dependent on subsurface groundwater.
BlueTriton will continue operations at its facility in Hope, British Columbia, which serves the Western provinces and U.S. Pacific Northwest.
