A calorie-counting, health-conscious America has fallen in love with bottled water, creating a free-for-all business climate as drink companies vie for a piece of the lucrative but cut-throat market. The frontline: a convenience store shelf near you.

“It’s dog eat dog,” said Joe Shearer, a drink distributor with Piedmont Vending on rounds at Maggie Valley gas stations last week.

Drink companies employ teams of marketers who travel the state lobbying convenience store managers with an arsenal of NASCAR tickets, UNC basketball tickets, and free gifts like lawnchairs and beach towels in the quest for prime cooler space.

“Six months later you got a new manager and you have to start all over again,” Shearer said.

A Pepsi distributor hauling flats of Mountain Dew into a Maggie Valley convenience store last week summed up how the big boys vie for cooler space by rubbing his forefingers against his thumb — the universal sign for money.

Some companies, if they’re lucky, can buy “exclusivity” to be the only drink brand the store carries. Companies frequently offer to buy a cooler and install it if a storeowner agrees to stock it with only their product.

That kind of buying power makes it difficult for smaller companies to get a toehold in the market.

“That’s one of the biggest challenges we face — there is limited cooler space,” said Greg Duff, the general manager for Cherokee Bottled Water.

Cherokee Bottled Water, operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, was launched five years ago primarily as a promotional tool pitching Cherokee as a travel destination. Cherokee Bottled Water is a top seller in Cherokee, carried at nearly every gas station, restaurant, gift store, hotel lobby and campground. Despite less than ideal cooler placement, it holds its own at convenience stores against the two top sellers: Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani.

At Triple B convenience store in Cherokee, Cherokee Bottled Water is relegated to the bottom rung of a cooler, requiring customers to bend down to get it. Nonetheless, local customers skip over top brands and support their own.

“This is why I’m impressed with Cherokee. Cherokee has one row and it still sells out every week,” said Noah Bell, a Triple B manager at the chain’s Cherokee location.

The brand has found a lukewarm reception on store shelves outside the immediate region, however. Bell discontinued Cherokee Bottled Water at his Sylva locations, as have several convenience stores in the Waynesville area. It simply didn’t sell as well as name brands that have been cornering an increasingly larger percentage of the budding water market, store managers said.

“It’s hard going up against an established brand,” said Mark Higdon, who supervises ordering at the Time Out Markets chain. “There’s probably 100 different brands we could chose from and we only have room for three or four. No one ever has enough cooler space.”

The top three bottled water companies control 78 percent of the single-serve market, Duff said.

“Everybody else is fighting it out for the remaining 22 percent,” Duff said.

The share of the market controlled by the top brands has been increasing steadily. In 1997, the top five companies accounted for less than half the bottled water market. By 2002, those five companies claimed 70 percent of the market. Now, just three of those companies have gobbled up 78 percent.

Water for sale?

When bottled water burst on the scene in the 1990s, cynics were quick to joke that the pioneer brand at the time, Evian, was n-a-i-v-e spelled backwards. But bottled water sales now rival soda sales at some convenience stores. Nationally, bottled water sales surpass both milk and beer.

Joe Shearer, a drink hauler with Piedmont Vending Company, said the real bottled water surge took off about five years ago.

“I’ve been in vending since 1964. I would have never thought in 1964 we’d be selling water,” Shearer said.

In the past five years, bottled water sales have increased 50 percent and are projected to account for 15 percent of all the beverage industry by 2007. Soda controls 28 percent of the beverage industry.

Bottled water sales have mirrored an increase in diet soda sales, leading Mark Higdon, store supervisor of Time Out Market’s eight locations, to attribute at least part of the bottled water rage to a more health conscious society.

“Diet drinks are starting to surpass the sale of regular drinks,” Higdon said, citing it as quite a milestone in the drink industry. Higdon thinks sugar-free flavored water is the next new drink trend.

Cherokee Bottled Water has seen a steady 10-percent growth in sales since it was launched in 1998. The company employs five people.

Price isn’t everything

The wholesale cost of Cherokee Bottled Water is cheaper than brand names like Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani. Store owners can make more after mark up. That’s why Bob Shuey, owner of Signal Marina on Lake Glenville, phased out other brands this year and began carrying only Cherokee Bottled Water.

“It’s a local water and it is very reasonably priced,” Shuey said, estimating that it was 10 to 20 cents cheaper per bottle than other water brands.

It’s a deal Cherokee Bottled Water is willing to cut, because the primary purpose of selling the water is not to make a huge profit. Instead, Cherokee Bottled Water’s mission is advertising Cherokee as a travel destination — the visitor center phone number and Web site are printed on the label. Duff calls it cross-promotion.

Despite the price, if the volume of sales isn’t there, the cooler space is hard to justify. Shuey has the luxury of a captive market at his marina, but customers expect choices at convenience stores. And when given a choice, consumers opt for brands they recognize — and brands that pop out at eye level in the coolers.

The cooler placement battle — a never-ending point of contention between beverage companies — could be even more crucial in water sales, where variation in taste between brands is far less discernible. That leads some customers to merely grab a bottle, any bottle.

“Honestly, how different can one brand of water be over another? It’s still water,” said Noah Bell, night manager for the Triple B convenience store chain with four locations in Jackson and Swain counties.

Serious bottled water consumers disagree with that statement vehemently. Felipe Amador of Florida was vacationing in Maggie Valley last week and couldn’t find his regular brand, Zephyr Hills. After perusing the cooler, he grabbed a bottle of Deer Park water. The primary factor in his decision: anything but Dasani.

“I don’t like Dasani. It has a strong taste. I like my water to be smooth,” said Amador, who buys a bottle of water at a gas station everyday.

Amy Jenkins, 20, who also purchases a bottle of water daily, held the opposite sway.

“I like Dasani over Aquafina,” she said, saying that Aquafina tastes like plastic.

Jenkins’ daily water buying habits started when she was 17. At restaurants, she opts for bottled water over tap water. And she never refills a bottle with tap water.

“I don’t think it’s as clean,” Jenkins said.

That depends on where you live. In this region, where town water supply reservoirs are at the top of the watershed, tap water is cleaner and treated with fewer chemicals and chlorine than some bottled water.

A quick inspection of the bottle label reveals whether the water is “purified,” “spring” or “well” water. “Purified water” — like Jenkin’s Dasani — is essentially tap water. Brands that purport to be “spring water” are captured at the source where water first springs from the ground. “Well water” is considered even purer, captured underground before reaching the surface. Bottled water classifications are tightly regulated by the FDA.

Cherokee Bottled Water falls in the category of “purified water” — it’s the same water that residents in Cherokee get from their tap. But Cherokee’s “tap water,” originating high in the mountains, is purer than the average tap water and doesn’t require the level of chemical treatment tap water is subjected to in big cities.

That’s the crux of Cherokee Bottle Water’s marketing scheme.

“People equate mountain water as good water and we perpetuate that further with Native American theme. The fact that it comes from Cherokee ancestral lands, it’s attractive to people,” Duff said.

Cherokee Bottled Water was the 2001 Gold Medal Winner of the prestigious Berkley Springs International Festival of Waters tasting contest. Judges look, sniff and taste each water like a wine tasting, rating the water for attributes such as clear appearance, lack of aroma, clean taste, light feel in the mouth and lack of aftertaste.

Duff is quick to point out other bragging rights: Cherokee Bottled Water refrains from the common practice of injecting a nitrogen bubble under each lid to keep the bottle robust and firm. Cherokee Bottled Water has no such negative space to fill under the lid.

“We go to the top. Extra value,” Duff said, pointing to the neck of the water bottle.

Duff wears his pride for Cherokee Bottled Water on his sleeve, literally. A long-distance runner, Duff puts a temporary tattoo sticker on his bicep before races. When it comes to promotion, every little bit helps.

As a regular in the race circuit, Duff saw the hordes of thirsty participants who flock to the region’s line-up of marathons, triathlons, paddling contests, bike races and trail runs as potential customers. Cherokee Bottled Water is a regular sponsor of such outdoor events, stationing free barrels of cold water bottles at the race’s start and finish and along the route.

True to the industry, competition is rampant even when it comes to giving away your product.

“One of our conditions when we sponsor an event is we don’t allow any other bottled waters there,” Duff said.