Bottled water, in general, is an excellent source of drinking water, but is subject to contamination if not properly protected at the source, during bottling operations, transit to retail outlets and storage at home. These facts dictate a need for a uniform national policy to monitor bottled water by the FDA, State agencies or local government at a frequency that relates to the consumer base (interstate or intrastate) for each bottled water producer. This frequency of bacteriological sampling based on population served should be that specified in the Federal Regulations for public water supplies. Since unsatisfactory bottled water lots would be subject to recall, each container should be marked with a lot number or preferably a bottling date to assist in the identification of contaminated supplies. Production dates would also provide the consumer with knowledge on freshness of supply and possibly assist in the movement of fresh supplies from the retail shelves. While there will generally be some change in bacterial quality during storage before sale, refrigerated storage will slow the process and hold the heterotrophic bacteria densities to below 1,000 organisms per mL.