A study with about 10,000 bottles produced by a mineral water company was undertaken in order to identify the causal agent of an off-odour occurrence in the bottled water. Some physiological attributes of the dominant species over an 8-month period, as well as their interaction with packaging material, were investigated. Pseudomonas maltophilia, P. acidovorans, Acinetobacter calcoaceticus var. lowffi, frequently associated with bottles having an off-odour, seemed to play a decisive role in the phenomenon due to their elevated lipolytic activity, their cell hydrophobicity and adhesivity to the PVC walls. Their ability to attack the sodium polysulfide included in the ultramarine blue dye present in PVC, transforming it to H2S was investigated.