Two Schoolgirls Prove Ribena’s Short on Vitamin C

Ribena is a popular soft drink in the British Commonwealth made from black currants. Because the Second World War made it tougher than usual to get oranges and such in Britain, and because Vitamin C-laden black currants grow readily there, the War Government encouraged their cultivation and consumption. From there, it spread to wherever the Union Jack flew. GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Ribena, has been undone by two New Zealand schoolgirls who proved that Ribena doesn’t have as much Vitamin C as GSK claims.

Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo in 2004 tested the drink. GSK’s advertising said that “the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges.” That may be, but the two young ladies proved that the actual Ribena GSK produced had almost no vitamin C at all, and that one commercially available brand of orange juice in New Zealand had four times as much.

Normally, no one would care what two smart-assed kids proved, but in New Zealand, the Commerce Commission (sort of a consumer ombudsman) took the evidence to court. GSK copped a plea admitting that the ads may have given consumers the wrong idea about the Vitamin C content of Ribena. The fine was NZ$227,500 (US$163,700) for misleading advertising.

“As a multinational company specializing in pharmaceuticals and health products, they should have had robust testing and quality assurance systems in place to ensure its product was delivering what it promised,” Commission chair Paula Rebstock said in a statement. Ms. Devathasan told Radio New Zealand, “We’re just blown away that anything we could have started as a consumer could have blown up into something so huge.”

As is this journal. What is particularly troubling is the huge firm of GSK and the governments of the 22 nations where Ribena is sold and enjoyed didn’t do any of the testing that these two girls did. It isn’t that anyone committed any deliberate fraud, nor that anyone’s health was seriously compromised. Rather, one is offended by the fact that those whose job it is to ensure that advertisers tell a reliable story to consumers were shown up so easily.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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