A customer can see mould on bread and smell spoiled meat — but contaminated water looks, smells and tastes exactly like safe water. In a packaged water plant, the product is the process: if the barriers worked, the water is safe; if they didn't, nothing on the shelf will reveal it. Regulators know this, and they audit accordingly.
Why Water Plants Are Audited So Hard
Everything hangs on documented systems: source protection, storage under a chlorine regime, multiple-barrier treatment including a protozoan barrier, closed-cycle packing, and full physical, chemical, radiological and microbiological specifications — plus labelling rules that prohibit unfounded health claims.
What the AGS Drinking Water Guideline Covers
Fifty chapters and six annexes aligned with Codex CXS 227-2001 and CXC 48-2001 and the WHO Drinking-water Guidelines, with ISO 22000:
- Source assessment, protection, and water transport and storage
- Multiple-barrier treatment, disinfection and by-product control
- The closed-cycle packing section as a controlled area
- Containers and closures — the container as an ingredient
- Complete packed-water specifications and the four monitoring points
- Labelling and prohibited claims, plus laboratory and verification sampling
Annex B is the technical heart for daily operation: the four monitoring points with their microbiological criteria, the comparison of chemical values, the chlorine sterilisation regime and the five sections of the plant. Annexes C through F add the inspection checklist, the plant-wide cleaning rules, the Codex/ISO 22000 conformance map and the jurisdictional adaptation register.
Who It Helps
Bottled water producers, plant engineers, laboratory and QA staff, and water authorities licensing and monitoring packaged water plants. Laboratories gain a defined sampling frame instead of ad-hoc testing.
Get the Guideline
Get the Drinking Water Packing Factories guideline from AGS — instant digital download, fully editable Microsoft Word, ready to underpin the trust your label promises. Because it arrives as a Word document rather than a locked PDF, you can add your logo, adjust values to your jurisdiction and issue it as a controlled document within your own management system — no retyping, no reformatting.
Product: Drinking Water Packing Factories — available as an instant-download, fully editable package from AGS (SKU AGS-03-010).