Smartwater – bottled water produced by the Coca-Cola company – has been voted the most misleading consumer product of the year by visitors to the Foodwatch website.

‘It is simply very expensive water,’ Foodwatch said. ‘Per mouthful, it is five times as expensive as other supermarket mineral water. If you compare it to tap water, it is roughly a thousand times more expensive, and no more healthy.’

Coca-Cola has said it does not consider the product to be misleading. ‘The ingredients and labelling are clear, factual and meet Dutch product regulations,’ the company told website Nu.nl. ‘As far as we are concerned there is no question of misleading consumers.’

Eight products were nominated for the award this year and 12,000 people took part in the vote. Coca-cola took 30% of the total.

Second place went to Venco’s ‘honey liquorice’ which contains 150 times more sugars than honey and third place to Cullinella olive oil from Aldi with 21% olive oil.

Aldi has already said it will change the labeling of the oil and Albert Heijn, Jumbo and Vomar will change the labels of their products which were nominated, Foodwatch said.