Perrier Launches Global Recall of Water : Marketing: Realizing that the benzene tainting problem is larger than first believed, the French firm takes action to maintain its image of purity.

After small amounts of benzene contamination were detected in bottles of Perrier water in Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as in the United States, Perrier executives Wednesday announced a total recall of their product from the 120 countries where it is sold.

At a Paris news conference, the company produced a cancer specialist who said a consumer would have to drink a quart of contaminated Perrier a day for life before he or she would have consumed a minimally dangerous level of benzene, a chemical known to cause cancer in animals. Nonetheless, company President Gustav Leven said Perrier is withdrawing the bubbly water from retail shelves around the world.

“We don’t want the least doubt, as minimal as it might be, to weigh on the image of the quality and purity of our product,” Leven said.

Perrier managing director Frederik Zimmer said the contamination was caused when workers at the Perrier plant in Vergeze in southern France failed to change a filter that is supposed to catch small amounts of benzene found naturally in the spring.

“We don’t know exactly how long the filter had been there, that’s the problem,” Zimmer said. “It was complete negligence.”

The company officials said it will take 2 1/2 months to replace the 160-million bottles it has distributed around the world. Vice President Jacques Vincent estimated that the company’s loss in the episode would be about 200 million French francs, or about $35 million. He said the company had no insurance.

American supermarkets are filling Perrier’s shelf space evenly with whatever other bottled waters they have in stock, said Don Beaver, president of the California Grocers Assn. While that shelf space is lost to Perrier for the time being, Beaver said, the familiar green bottles should have no trouble working their way back into circulation as soon as they’re available.

“It’s an extremely popular water and an extremely good seller,” said Vickie Sanders, spokeswoman for Vons Cos. “There’s no reason that the popularity will diminish. The problem’s in the bottling, not the water. Once they solve that problem, there’s no reason to think people won’t be looking for Perrier when it’s back on the shelf.”

Since Friday, the last trading day before the contamination scare was first made public, the company’s stock has fallen by nearly 20%, or $49, on the Paris stock exchange, the Bourse. Meanwhile, the main French stock exchange investigating agency, the Commission des Operations de Bourse (COB) announced Wednesday that it is investigating possible insider-trading violations in sales of the stock that occurred before the Friday closing.

Managing director Zimmer said the company has known about the benzene contamination since Feb. 2, when it was informed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that small amounts of the chemical had been discovered in bottles tested in North Carolina.

The company tested the water and confirmed the contamination about a week later. Last Saturday, it ordered that 72 million bottles of Perrier be recalled from North America.

But the commission noticed heavy trading of Perrier stock Friday, Feb. 9, in advance of the company’s announcement. Traders said there had been unusually heavy buying of Perrier sale options.

At its news conference Wednesday, the company attempted to minimize both the potential danger of the benzene contamination and the impact that the recall would have on its overall business.

French professor of medicine and cancer specialist Maurice Tubiana said drinking one liter (roughly one quart) of contaminated Perrier a day corresponds to the same cancer risk as “inhaling the smoke of a smoker a meter away from you.”

Zimmer said the bright side of the contamination scare in the United States at least would be a boost in business for the company’s other water products. In addition to selling Perrier in the U.S. market, the company is also by far the biggest producer of native American waters, including Calistoga, Poland Springs, Great Bear and Arrowhead in Southern California.

“Perrier represents only 15% to 16% of the water sold in the United States by our group,” Zimmer said.

Company President Leven, 75, contended that the company withdrew its product to protect its image.

“We are a symbol,” he said. “Even in a country as demanding as the United States, we are recognized as the standard for all the other waters. And that is our pride.”

Times staff writer Maria L. La Ganga in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

BUBBLING SUCCESS

If the bottled water recall proves to be a setback for Perrier, it will be the first in a lengthy success story by the French firm. D6