Tue 27 Mar 2007
Drugs giant faces court after girls' Ribena test
THE global drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline faces a court case today for misleading advertising after two 14-year-olds from New Zealand found the blackcurrant drink Ribena contained almost no vitamin C.
In a high school science experiment, Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo tested the drink against advertising claims that "the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges" in 2004.
They found that the syrup-based drink contained almost no vitamin C and that one commercial orange juice brand contained almost four times more vitamin C than Ribena. They also found that blackcurrants, the essential ingredient of Ribena, made up 5 per cent of the drink.
Now the drink's makers, UK-based GlaxoSmithKline, is being taken to court in New Zealand after admitting misleading consumers for more than 50 years.
Today, GlaxoSmithKline's New Zealand division faces 15 charges brought by the New Zealand Commerce Commission, the country's corporate watchdog, of making misleading representations about Ribena. If found guilty, the firm faces fines of up to NZ$3 million (£1.091 million).
GlaxoSmithKline admitted to authorities in Australia and New Zealand that it misled consumers by implying the drink contained four times as much vitamin C as comparable orange juice drinks. GlaxoSmithKline Australia has admitted that it may have misled consumers about Ribena's vitamin C content, and has reported the discrepancies of the claims to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The firm also admitted that advertising and packaging which implied Ribena fruit drinks contained four times the vitamin C of comparable orange juice products were incorrect. It said the nutritional information panel of Ribena ready-to-drink fruit drinks claimed the products contained a higher amount of vitamin C than they actually did.
Television advertising and claims on drink bottles and packets have since been changed to drop the false claims.
The result is a sweet victory for the two Auckland schoolgirls, then aged 14, who the company initially ignored.
"We did the study for a bit of fun," said Anna, who embarked on a series of experiments on vitamin C in fruit juices in 2004 for a science competition.
Jenny added: "When we got no response [to a letter and e-mail], we telephoned them, but they didn't take us seriously because we were just 14."
The girls eventually reported the firm to the Commerce Commission, which brought the prosecution. It forced the company's Australian headquarters to approach the Australian corporate watchdog to volunteer that its marketing was misleading and give an undertaking to explain the true nutritional make-up of Ribena on its packaging, website and future advertising.
Graeme Samuel, chairman of the ACCC, said: "It is extremely important that companies use appropriate calculation methods when making claims about the contents of food or beverage products, especially when claims relate to nutrition."
At the Consumer Commission's request, GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to make only claims which can be verified by valid testing methods, to stop false representations about Ribena's vitamin C content and to place notices in shops advising of any misleading information.
HOW IT BECAME A WARTIME FAVOURITE
RIBENA was originally made by the Bristol food and drink company Carters as a blackcurrant cordial.
The drink was launched in the 1930s and called Ribena, from the botanical name for the blackcurrant, Ribes nigrum. Blackcurrants are a rich source of Vitamin C.
It came into its own during the Second World War, when other fruits rich in vitamin C, such as oranges, were hard to obtain because of enemy attacks on shipping and the priority being given to the import of war goods.
As a result, blackcurrant cultivation was encouraged by the Ministry of Food and the yield of the UK crop increased significantly.
From 1942, almost the entire British crop was turned into blackcurrant syrup (or cordial), almost all of it manufactured by Carters, and it was distributed to the nation's children for free.
The makers of blackcurrant-flavoured drink Ribena, GlaxoSmithKline, are in a New Zealand court today after it was discovered that the company's 55-year advertising campaign is misleading to consumers. Ribena had promoted the drink as being rich in vitamin C, with four times as much as oranges, and claimed the "Ready to Drink" Ribena had 7mg of vitamin C per 100ml. Tests have shown that "Ready to Drink" Ribena does not have any detectable vitamin C content.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), an international leading healthcare company second only to Pfizer, pleaded guilty to all 15 charges laid against them by New Zealand's Commerce Commission in Auckland's District Court. GSK did, however, fight the expected fine of up to $350,000 and corrective advertisements, proposing instead a $60,000 fine with no corrective advertisements. In the end, they were fined $217,000 for their breaches of New Zealand's fair trading act, and will have to publish correcting advertisements.

It was first revealed that Ribena did not contain any traces of vitamin C when two 14-year-old Pakuranga College students did tests. At first Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo thought they had conducted their tests incorrectly, so they tried again, but the same result came up. They contacted the firm three times, and approached the Commerce Commission after receiving no response.

Ms Devathasan said, "We did the study for a bit of fun."

A study in January 2007 also revealed that the drink contains only 5% actual blackcurrant juice.