Ribena

Ribena is a brand of uncarbonated soft drink made by GlaxoSmithKline. The original and most common variety contains real blackcurrant juice.

History
Ribena was originally manufactured by the Bristol-based food and drink company HW Carter as a blackcurrant cordial. Development research into pure fruit syrups for the manufacture of milkshakes had been done at the Long Ashton Agriculture and Horticulture Research Station in north Somerset using a pectinase enzyme process; essentially Ribena was invented there. The blackcurrant variety was found to contain high levels of Vitamin C. The drink was launched in 1936 and it was given the name Ribena, from the botanical name for the blackcurrant, Ribes nigrum in 1938. Blackcurrants are a rich source of Vitamin C. During the Second World War other fruits rich in vitamin C, like oranges (from Florida), became almost impossible to obtain in the United Kingdom, due to the U boat campaign. Blackcurrant cultivation was encouraged by the Government and the yield of the nation's crop increased significantly. From 1942 almost the entire British blackcurrant crop was made into blackcurrant syrup (or cordial), almost all of it manufactured by Carters, and distributed to the nation's children for free without the Ribena brand name, giving rise to the lasting popularity of blackcurrant flavourings in Britain. Production moved to the new Royal Forest Factory at Coleford in the autumn of 1947 in the Forest of Dean, where production takes place today. Carters were bought out by the Beecham company (later to become GlaxoSmithKline) in 1955. There have been various incarnations of carbonated Sparkling Ribena, sold in cans - throughout the 1980s and early 1990s there was a can-based version simply named 'Ribena', in about 1993 'Ribena Spring' was launched, a gently carbonated version in ready to drink bottle form, which was discontinued and replaced with 'Ribena Sparx', another can-based carbonated edition, in the late 1990s, a product which is still being produced today. The mid-1990s vampire TV show Forever Knight used undiluted Ribena as prop blood, as it seemed to be of similar consistency.

Ribena today
Ribena is now sold as a cordial and also pre-diluted and marketed in a large variety of flavours including Strawberry, Blackcurrant & Cranberry, Orange and Apple. It has recently launched a blueberry flavour. The original Blackcurrant flavour comes in Original and Really Light (low calorie) varieties.

Ribena can be mixed with the alcoholic, anise flavoured drink, Pernod. Water & ice are then added to produce the cocktail named the 'King of Denmark'. It is also a key ingredient in the "snakebite and black" version of the lager/cider mixture called snakebite (although this is usually made with much cheaper blackcurrant cordials).

It is claimed in advertisements for Ribena (as well as on their cartons and bottles, and on their web-site) that 95% of all UK and Irish farmed blackcurrants are used in their drinks. This has now been changed to "nearly all of British blackcurrants are used in Ribena". Some of the juice for Ribena is pressed by Somerset-based cider brewer Thatcher's.

In May 2006, Ribena Blueberry was introduced to the UK market.

January 2007 saw a design change of the standard Ribena cartons.

In June 2007, a new raspberry flavoured Ribena was released.

Controversy
In recent years the brand has been criticised, due to the high sugar content of its products which is comparable to other soft drinks such as cola. A study conducted by the Australian Consumers' Association for Choice magazine in January 2007 revealed that blackcurrant juice only constituted 5% of the product with the rest being a processed concentrate.

The Food Commission in the United Kingdom has also criticised the sugar levels in regular Ribena as have several newspapers and publications.

Misleading and false claims
In 2001, a formulation of the dliuted Ribena cordial sold as Ribena Toothkind (and endorsed by the British Dental Association) was judged by the Advertising Standards Authority to have been advertised in a misleading manner, and that claims that the drink did not encourage tooth decay should be removed from the packaging. The opinion was upheld by a hearing in the High Court.

In 2004, two high school students (Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo) from Pakuranga College in Auckland, New Zealand, conducted a science experiment to determine the Vitamin C levels of their favourite fruit drinks. As Ribena advertising refers to "four times the vitamin C of oranges" they were surprised to discover the levels of Vitamin C were much lower at 22 mg/100ml in the syrup compared with another product 'Just Juice' at 72mg/100ml. After contacting the manufacturers of Ribena, their concerns of "intentionally misleading and quite inappropriate" claims were dismissed and they were told the claim related only to the blackcurrant fruit, not the product.

Their case was taken up by a television consumer affairs show Fair Go which  broadcast the story nationwide on TV ONE in October 2004. Following further testing, in March 2007 the New Zealand Commerce Commission brought 15 charges in the Auckland District Court against GlaxoSmithKline under the Fair Trading Act. In addition to the misleading representations that the Ribena range "contained four times the vitamin C of oranges" in its advertising and packaging, cartoned ready to drink Ribena falsely claimed on the label to have 7mg of vitamin C per 100ml or 44 per cent of the recommended daily intake when it had no detectable vitamin C content.

In Australia where the same products were on sale, GlaxoSmithKline issued a statement one week before the New Zealand court case confirming labelling discrepancies on its Ready to Drink range to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and undertook to remove all references to vitamin C from its labels. On 27 March 2007 GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty to all 15 charges and was fined NZ$217,500 by Auckland District Court for misleading consumers and ordered to run a series of corrective advertisements and place a statement on its website. . Since the court case GlaxoSmithKline has issued a statement on its official ribena website; "Only products in the Ready to Drink category were affected by the Commerce Commission concerns about Vitamin C content information. Until the Commerce Commission began its investigation into some Ready to Drink products, GSK was unaware there was an issue with the Vitamin C information on them. As with the ‘four times’ claim, we took similar prompt action to correct this more than a year ago."

- http://www.ribena.co.nz

GlaxoSmithKline claims of prompt action and being unaware of the issue appear to be in conflict with the claim of the two high school students to have contacted Ribena manufacturers with their concerns in 2004, and a television broadcast of the story nationwide on TV ONE in October 2004. They do not disclose why a product from one of the world's largest food and pharmaceutical companies was falsely labelled when Vitamin C content can be accurately tested by fourteen year olds with school laboratory equipment.

GlaxoSmithKline maintains that the issue only affects Australia and New Zealand and that Ribena sold in other markets such as the United Kingdom contain the levels of vitamin C stated on the product label.

Video clips

 * Sparkling Ribena advert from 1985

News items

 * Ribena in court
 * Article about misleading Vitamin C content of Ribena
 * The Ribena story on Pakuranga College Paknet

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