THE ECONOMICS OF MAGNESIUM FORTIFICATION OF BEVERAGES
The cost of magnesium fortification of all water-based canned
or bottled beverages in California, bringing them up to 90 mg/L
by the addition of magnesium chloride hexahydrate, is about $42
Million per annum. The savings, as previously reported, are
between 24,886 and 100,350 lives per annum in California (2).
The economic benefit of magnesium fortification can be
estimated at $200,000 per life, if the consumer earns only
$20,000 per year for an additional 10 years. Perhaps an equal
number of consumers would have been incapacitated by heart
disease (or fear of heart attack), and so their earnings would
also have been lost due to the lack of magnesium. There may be a
few Billions more savings in medical care and supporting
incapacitated heart-attack victims. So the economic benefits in
California of magnesium fortification would be at least $10
Billion per annum, and the cost/benefit ratio is better than
1/237. The cost of preventing these 24,886 to 100,350 deaths is
between $418 and $1,687 each per annum. The cost per consumer is
$1.40 per annum, as obtained by dividing the $42 Million cost by
the 30 Million California consumers.
These calculations of the cost of magnesium fortification are
based on these assumptions:
1. That the cost of food grade magnesium chloride is $1.46
per lb., (truck-load price as quoted by Mallinkrodt Chemical
Corp. in St. Louis). I assume that economies of scale would at
least cover the transport cost
2. That based on atomic weights, magnesium chloride contains
only 12% magnesium by weight.
3. That the established formula for determining the quantity
of additive is:
Dosage mg/L * Millions of Gal. * 8.34 =
lb of elemental Mg.
4. That the population of California is 30,000,000.
5. That the liquid consumption in California is the RDA of
182.5 gallons per annum.
6. That 84.2% of the liquid consumption is water-based (1),
including beer, but excluding milk, fresh juices, and wine.
(Note that milk, most juices, and wine are all rich in Mg.)
7. That homemade beverages such as coffee, tea, and lemonade
will be made only with Mg-rich bottled water. And all water
consumption will be from bottles, not tap.
8. That the source of ingredient water contains only an
insignificant amount of natural magnesium. (Los Angeles' water
actually contains 9-30 mg/L Mg, but San Francisco has less than
1 mg/L; some bottlers "strip" the water of minerals with
reverse osmosis before flavoring or carbonating it.)
9. That annually magnesium deficiency causes the death of
.003345 of a subset comprising .248 of the population. It is
unknown if the same rate of death affects the rest of the
population, including the high-risk groups of infants and the
aged.
Based on the above assumptions, the following calculation can
be made: 30,000,000 population multiplied by 182.5 gallons per
annum is 5,475,000,000 gallons, which when multiplied by .842
yields 4,609,950,000 gallons of water-based beverages consumed
per annum in California. 90 mg/L * 4,610 Million Gal. * 8.34 =
3,460,266 lb. Mg. Since magnesium chloride hexahydrate is only 12
% magnesium by weight, it will take 28,835,550 lb. of magnesium
chloride hexahydrate per annum to treat all the water-based
bottled or canned beverages in the State of California. At $1.46
per lb., that works out to $42,099,903 per annum. Projecting that
to the United States as a whole, the cost of fortifying all
water-based bottled or canned beverages in the U.S. would be
$350,832,500 per annum, and the benefits would be at least $86
Billion, plus Billions more saved in medical care and supporting
the incapacitated survivors of heart attacks. So the cost/benefit
ratio is better than 1/237, and more than pays for itself.
One Dollar's worth of magnesium chloride would treat 1,171
twelve-ounce servings of beverage.
It is clear that magnesium chloride is too expensive to be
used for treating municipal supplies; the American Water Works
Association reports that the 58,000 community water systems in
the country process 38.5 Billion gallons per day, which would
cost $121 Billion per annum to treat with magnesium chloride. It
may be much cheaper to filter municipal water through a large bed
of crushed magnesium ore, leaching the magnesium into the
water.
Until now, the International Magnesium Producer's Association
has been primarily concerned with metallic magnesium, but that
market is only about $900 Million per annum world-wide; the
global market for food-grade magnesium compounds for bottled
beverages appears to be much larger than the metallic market.
Bottlers will benefit from the stronger economy and the larger
"Share of Stomach" that their fortified products will win from
tap water. Magnesium fortification of bottled beverages can be
implemented much sooner than fortification of municipal supplies,
as much less work needs to be done to implement bottled
fortification. Currently, bottlers have a Share of Stomach of
about 60%, and tap water has about a 40% Share of Stomach, as it
is used for fresh-brewed coffee, tea, powdered drinks, and as
drinking water (1).
If consumers are advised by government agencies to use
fortified bottled water or other fortified beverages instead of
tap water, bottlers may see their Share of Stomach rise from 60%
to 80% or more, which would increase their sales volume by at
least 33%. Fortification is a more certain way of gaining added
sales volume than the uncertainty of advertising campaigns.
Fortification of bottled and canned beverages could be
implemented sooner by voluntary, profitable compliance than by
government decree. Instead of the government subsidizing
magnesium fortification with inefficient tax dollars, it would be
cheaper and faster to simply announce the benefits of
magnesium-rich beverages, which, combined with the new labelling
law, would create a market incentive for bottlers to fortify.
Later, after the initial marketing frenzy, the government can
mandate a minimum standard for all bottlers.
It is possible that magnesium chloride is not the most ideal
additive in terms of taste--it is reportedly bitter. Adobe Springs water is sweet, not bitter, and
contains 96 mg/L magnesium which is thought to be in the form of
magnesium carbonate. Milk, most juices, and wine are also rich in
magnesium without bitterness. So perhaps magnesium carbonate or
magnesium citrate would be tastier additives.
I have heard bottlers say that bread should be fortified
instead of beverages. One problem with bread is the dosage; some
people eat almost no bread, and others eat a lot. Only beverages
show a uniform pattern of consumption, providing a stable dosage.
And water-borne magnesium is 30% more bio-available than
food-borne magnesium. Athletes or others who drink a lot also
sweat and urinate a lot, losing magnesium; so magnesium fortified
beverages are the perfect vehicle for replacing lost
magnesium.
June 18, 1994
Revised Aug. 29, 1994
REFERENCES
1. BEVERAGE INDUSTRY Annual Manual, 1993-1994, p 12.
2. Formula for Magnesium Deficiency Death Index - Municipal,
as given in the article, Calculations of American Deaths Caused
By Magnesium Deficiency, As Projected From International Data,
publication pending in Magnesium And Trace Elements, 199
This page was first uploaded to The Magnesium Web Site on
September 30, 1995
http://www.mgwater.com/
Healthy Water
Association--USA