Water guidance for Wales and Northern Ireland
Guidance on the recognition, exploitation, bottling and labelling rules for natural mineral water, spring water and bottled drinking water in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Natural mineral water (NMW) changes from 1 January 2021
There will be changes to how NMW is traded from 1 January 2021.
Read the guidance on natural mineral water changes from 1 January 2021
About the guidance
The text should not be taken as an authoritative statement or interpretation of the law. Only courts can provide this.
It is your responsibility as an individual businesses to ensure you comply with the law.
If you have any specific queries please ask your local authority.
These regulations include conditions for:
- exploiting spring for natural mineral water, spring water and bottled drinking water
- processing and bottling of such waters
- labelling, advertising and sale of such waters
- monitoring of the source
- sampling of such waters
- enforcement of the Regulations
England, Northern Ireland and Wales
England
Wales and Northern Ireland
SCOTLAND
In Scotland, the Food Standards Scotland is responsible for legislation in this area.
Important
EU references in FSA guidance documents
The FSA is updating all EU references, to accurately reflect the law now in force, in all new or amended guidance published since the 'Transition Period' ended at the end of 2020. In some circumstance it may not always be practicable for us to have all EU references updated at the point we publish new or amended guidance.
Other than in Northern Ireland, any references to EU Regulations in this guidance should be read as meaning retained EU law. You can access retained EU law via HM Government EU Exit Web Archive. This should be read alongside any EU Exit legislation that was made to ensure retained EU law operates correctly in a UK context. EU Exit legislation is on legislation.gov.uk. In Northern Ireland, EU law will continue to apply in respect to the majority of food and feed hygiene and safety law, as listed in the Northern Ireland Protocol, and retained EU law will not apply to Northern Ireland in these circumstances.
Food industry guides
You can find more information about bottled water on our Food Industry Guide to Good Hygiene Practice: Bottled Water which is on The Stationary Office's website.