A Michigan township has temporarily blocked Nestlé's attempt to pump millions of litres of groundwater for bottled water - the latest in a series of municipalities engaged in legal battles with the world’s largest food and beverage company.

Ontario is proposing to charge water-bottling companies a little over $500 per million litres, up from the current fee of just a few dollars.

Nestle will have to wait two years before it can even test a well it purchased in a fast-growing southern Ontario community which wanted the site for its drinking water supply.