Can SIGG brand recover after BPA deception?

As outrage over the SIGG water bottle controversy grows, business experts are asking whether a company that was dishonest about the presence of BPA in its products can ever recover.

SIGG, a Swiss company that produces aluminum water bottles, saw sales increase 250% between 2006 and 2007 alone as health-conscious consumers abandoned plastic water bottles and invested in reusable bottles like SIGG’s. Last week SIGG's CEO announced that until recently the bottle liner contained BPA.

Many question whether SIGG, which benefited from fear of BPA, can regain trust after allowing consumers to believe its products were BPA-free.

CEO Steve Wasik knowingly mislead consumers as the issue of BPA was raised again and again, according to a story in Ad Age.

The company has carefully crafted its message in recent years, letting consumers believe and, in some cases, the media report that its bottles were BPA-free…

Further angering consumers, Sigg began working on a new, BPA-free liner in 2006 and invested $1 million in new equipment to produce its BPA-free EcoCare liner. Yet, the company was less than transparent in communicating that to the public.

An article in the Huffington Post asks whether the SIGG brand will be able to recover. Elaine Shannon of the Environmental Working Group writes:

It's hard to see Wasik's posture as anything but cynical. To be fair, he didn't say point blank that SIGG bottles contained no BPA. He said they didn't leach BPA. He decided, on his own authority, that consumers didn't want or need to know more.

And if others failed to parse his artfully worded statements, he didn't bother to correct them. His March 2007 reassurance to customers quoted an email from a consumer advocacy group that said, in part, "SIGG bottles do not contain BPAs."

If you have a SIGG at home, SIGG is offering to exchange old bottles for their new BPA-free bottles. The Soft Landing is also holding a BIGG Bottle Swap, accepting SIGGs in exchange for a discount on stainless steel bottles.