When you reach for a bottle of water from your fridge or grab one from the store shelf, you probably assume it’s completely safe to drink. After all, it’s just water in a sealed bottle, right? Turns out, several popular bottled water brands have been recalled recently because they tested positive for bacteria. Some recalls involved thousands of bottles, while others affected millions. The good news is that most of these bacteria weren’t the dangerous kind, but they still signal that something went wrong during the bottling process. Here’s what happened with several major brands and what you need to know if you’ve bought water recently.
Berkeley Springs water had coliform bacteria in over a thousand bottles
Berkeley Club Beverages in West Virginia recalled water bottles after testing found coliforms, which are bacteria that naturally exist in soil and the digestive systems of animals and humans. The recall originally seemed huge because the FDA mistakenly reported it as over 151,000 bottles, but it actually only affected 1,034 bottles. Most of those bottles were already recovered and destroyed before people could drink them, and no one got sick. The company said the FDA’s wrong number was a big mistake that made things sound worse than they were.
The affected bottles came in one-gallon and five-gallon sizes labeled as either purified or distilled Berkeley Springs Water. The recalled products had specific codes: 090326, 090426, 090526, and 090626. If you live in Maryland, Virginia, or West Virginia and bought water with these codes, you shouldn’t drink it. The FDA gave this recall a Class III rating, which is the least serious type. That means drinking this water probably wouldn’t make you sick, but coliforms can sometimes indicate that other harmful bacteria might be present too.
Fiji Water pulled nearly 2 million bottles for manganese and bacteria
More than 78,500 cases of Fiji Natural Artesian Water got recalled back in March after company testing found higher than normal manganese levels and three types of bacteria. Each case had multiple bottles, so this added up to around 1.9 million individual bottles. The bacteria they found weren’t the harmful kind that makes people sick, according to Fiji, but they still pulled the products from stores. This recall affected the 500 milliliter size bottles with specific case and bottle codes printed on the packaging.
The recalled water was sold throughout Washington state and across the country through online orders. Fiji fixed the problem quickly and their water is back on shelves now, though the FDA’s recall list still shows it as ongoing. The FDA classified this as Class III too, meaning it was unlikely to cause health problems. If you bought Fiji water during that time and it’s still sitting in your pantry, check the codes to see if it was part of the recall.
Waiakea Hawaiian water customers complained about floating stuff inside
Waiakea Hawaiian Volcanic Water recalled over 3,800 cases of their one-liter bottles in November 2023 after customers noticed floating particles in the water. Nobody wants to see mysterious things floating around in their drinking water, even if those particles turn out to be harmless. The company didn’t say what the floating stuff actually was, which probably didn’t help calm worried customers. The affected bottles had the codes WB123275 and WB123276 printed on them.
This recall covered nine states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Michigan, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Colorado. Unlike the previous recalls, the FDA gave Waiakea a Class II classification, which is more serious. Class II means there’s a chance the product could cause temporary health problems or a slight chance of something more serious happening. The recall has been going on since late 2023, so if you have any Waiakea water from that time, check those codes before drinking it.
Real Water caused actual liver failure and got the most serious recall
Real Alkalized Water is the scary one on this list. The FDA gave it a Class I recall, which is reserved for products that could cause serious health problems or even death. People in Las Vegas started getting sick with liver failure in late 2020 after drinking this water. The FDA investigated and found enough evidence to issue the recall in 2021. A lawsuit claimed the water contained hydrazine, a toxic chemical that damaged people’s livers, and a court awarded victims three billion dollars in June.
The really concerning part? This water was still being sold in some stores as recently as September, years after the recall started. Someone found it at a wine store in Beverly Hills, and you could even order it online from certain websites. The recall covered all sizes: 16.9 ounce, one liter, 1.5 liter, one gallon, and five gallon bottles. The company stopped making water after the recall went out and hasn’t met FDA standards to start up again. If you somehow have any Real Water sitting around, throw it out immediately.
Niagara Bottling recalled 14 different brand names at once
Niagara Bottling is a huge company that makes water for lots of different store brands and private labels. When one of their water sources in Auburn, Pennsylvania tested positive for E. coli bacteria, they had to recall spring water from 14 different brands all at once. The affected brands included Acadia, Big Y, Best Yet, Western Beef Blue, Superchill, 7-Eleven, Niagara, Pricerite, Wegmans, Morning Fresh, Shaws, and Nature’s Place. That’s a lot of different bottles on store shelves.
The recall covered water bottled between June 10th at 3 a.m. and June 18th at 8 p.m. from their Pennsylvania facilities in Allentown and Hamburg. You can tell if your water came from these plants by looking at the code on the bottle. Codes starting with the letter A came from Allentown, and codes starting with F came from Hamburg. The company told people to either boil the water for at least one minute before drinking it or just avoid it completely. E. coli is much more dangerous than coliforms because it can cause serious stomach problems, especially in young kids and elderly people. Niagara offered refunds for affected products and stopped using that contaminated water source.
Why bacteria shows up in bottled water in the first place
Bottled water seems like it should be super clean because it comes from a factory and gets sealed up tight. But bacteria can sneak in during several steps of the bottling process. Sometimes the original water source gets contaminated with runoff from rain or animal waste. Other times, the pipes and equipment used to move and bottle the water aren’t cleaned properly. Even tiny amounts of bacteria can multiply quickly once they’re in the water, especially if the bottles sit in warm storage areas for a while.
Companies are supposed to test their water regularly to catch problems before bottles reach stores. When testing finds bacteria, they’re required to report it and issue recalls. Most of the time, the bacteria found in these recalls aren’t the kinds that make people sick right away. But their presence means the water wasn’t processed correctly, and there could be other problems. That’s why even “harmless” bacteria trigger recalls. The contamination can spread quickly once it gets into the bottling system, which is why recalls often involve huge numbers of bottles from multiple production days.
How to check if your bottled water was recalled
Every bottled water product has codes printed somewhere on the bottle or cap that tell you when and where it was made. These codes usually include numbers for the production line, date, and time. When a recall happens, the company announces which specific codes are affected. You need to match the code on your bottle to the recall information to know if you should throw it out. The codes can be hard to read sometimes because they’re printed in small letters or numbers, so you might need good lighting.
The FDA maintains a list of all current food and drink recalls on their website, including bottled water. You can search by brand name to see if anything you bought is on the list. Most companies also put recall information on their own websites and social media. If you find out your water was recalled, don’t drink it even if you haven’t gotten sick. Either return it to the store for a refund or just throw it away. Some recalls drag on for months while companies figure out what went wrong, so water you bought a while ago might still be part of ongoing recalls.
What happens if you already drank recalled water
If you drank water from one of these recalls before you heard about it, you probably don’t need to panic. Most of the bacteria found in these recalls weren’t the dangerous kind. Coliforms usually don’t make healthy people sick, though they can cause minor stomach upset in some cases. Even with the Niagara recall that involved E. coli, not everyone who drinks contaminated water gets sick. Your immune system can fight off small amounts of bacteria, and stomach acid kills a lot of it.
Watch for symptoms like diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, or vomiting in the days after drinking recalled water. These usually show up within a few days if you’re going to get sick. Most cases are mild and go away on their own. If symptoms are severe or last more than a couple days, see a doctor and tell them you might have drunk contaminated water. The CDC says you should report it to your local health department too, so they can track whether the recall is causing illness. Keep the bottle and its code if possible, since that information helps investigators figure out what went wrong.
Some recalled products stayed on shelves way too long
One of the weirdest parts of these water recalls is how long some products stayed available for sale after being recalled. Real Water, which actually made people seriously sick, was still being sold in stores three years after the recall started. Someone even successfully ordered it online in the summer before it finally disappeared. That shouldn’t happen, but recalls depend on stores actually removing products from shelves and websites taking down listings.
The FDA can’t physically go into every store and pull recalled items themselves. They rely on the company issuing the recall to notify all their retailers, and then those retailers are supposed to remove the products. Small stores or online sellers sometimes miss the memo or don’t act fast enough. That’s why you need to check recall lists yourself rather than assuming everything in stores is safe. Just because a product is still on a shelf doesn’t mean it’s okay to buy. The Fiji recall also stayed on the FDA’s active list even after the company said the problem was fixed and water was back in stores.
These bottled water recalls show that sealed bottles don’t automatically mean safe water. Multiple big brands have had problems with bacteria getting into their products, from coliforms to E. coli. Most recalls involve bacteria that won’t make you seriously sick, but they point to breakdowns in the bottling process that shouldn’t happen. Check the codes on any bottled water you have at home against current recall lists, and don’t assume that because a product is still on store shelves it must be safe to drink.
