Soon time to sign up to help judge the California State Science Fair. I hope I can make it. Just to reassure you that not every entry is another trebuchet (just the physics, mechanics, etc., section and you’ll know what I mean), here’s a story about two schoolgirls from New Zealand, Jenny Suo and Anna Devathasan, who decided to test the claims of GlaxoSmithKline that their product – cartoned ready-to-drink Ribena – has high Vitamin C content. They set out to show that cheaper drinks were less healthy than Ribena, and found to their surprise that there were only trace amounts of Vitamin C at best.
I’m a bit shocked by this since I love Ribena, and grew up with it for years. I seem to remember that some of the largest writing on the packaging is about the huge amount of Vitamin C that you’re going to get. Admittedly, it’s not the vitamin C aspect that attracted me to it, of course -I just love the taste! But all the same, it’s a bit disappointing….
From an article by Mike Steere*:
Jenny said the Ribena ready-to-drink product was one of the first of the juice products they checked the results for.
“We just couldn’t believe it. We thought we must have done it wrong,” she said.
“We tested it another 10 times, and tested the syrup as well. The other products all came up with more vitamin C than they said, but not Ribena.”
Anyway, their work was picked up by the authorities, and it eventually went to court:
GlaxoSmithKline admitted its cartoned ready-to-drink Ribena, which it claimed had 7mg of vitamin C per 100ml, had no detectable vitamin C content.
The company also admitted it may have misled customers in advertisements saying the blackcurrants in Ribena syrup had four times the vitamin C of oranges.
They got fined, and were ordered to take various corrective measures, that you can read about in the full article here. There is a Guardian article here, with some more information.
So high school science experiments can… how can I say it…Kick some corporate butt! Excellent stuff! In fact, Jenny said:
“It’s incredible to think you can have this sort of impact as a consumer and as a kid.”
The obvious question that springs to mind is whether it was just the New Zealand product, or all Ribena everywhere. It’s a regional anomaly, it seems, and the company announced:
GSK said in a statement yesterday that concerns about vitamin C only affected some products in Australia and New Zealand.”GSK has conducted thorough laboratory testing of vitamin C levels in Ribena in all other markets. This testing has confirmed that Ribena drinks in all other markets, including the UK, contain the stated levels of vitamin C, as described on product labels.”
I also found support for this in this article from Singapore:
Ribena drinks sold in Singapore have been certified “rich in Vitamin C” by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA).
AVA said test results on the drinks showed that they meet the requirements under Singapore Food Regulations.
The regulations require 200ml of fruit juice drinks and cordials to contain at least 15 mg of Vitamin C before they can carry the claim “Rich in Vitamin C” claim.
And Ribena drinks made the mark.
The tests were conducted after Ribena drinks in New Zealand were found to contain almost no Vitamin C.
-cvj
(*Thanks Amara!)
Never heard of Ribena. I do love being a science fair judge. This year, my high school science teacher buddies only asked *me* to judge (although one Rotary dude showed up to judge engineering). That’s a small town for you. They’d decided that the volunteers they had in the past had selected the wrong projects to send to regionals, much as Yvette reports above. One year my daughter, who won a trip to international at regionals, as well as a lot of special awards, was in danger of not making it to the regional fair. The person in charge of the science fair overrode the opinion of the judges (so why have judges?) and sent her anyway. My daughter, the scientist, starts as a temporary plant biologist at Death Valley in a week or so.
See the last part of the post. It seems it was a local anomaly…. just the aussies and the kiwis affected.
-cvj
NOOOOOOOOOOO! I love Ribena! And you are telling me it is just flavoured sugar water?
Somehow having the Agri-biz board of Singapore’s approval of something does not necessarily inspire confidence (can you say tainted wheat gluten corporate HQ?). A militarized security fiefdom focussed on excessive overcomsumption is perhaps as prone to corrupt corporate largesse as say, that of a certain national FDA. Perhaps an independent review by a UK panel of analysts might be a better reference for a product’s quality.
This has been a huge news story around here the past few weeks (because, well, it doesn’t take much!). It reminds me of a similar science fair story a few years ago where a Baltimore girl showed that some canned fish not thought to have mercury in it actually did.
And glad to hear you’re planning to be a science fair judge! I entered every year in high school and every year the “Earth and Space” category consisted of random judges who didn’t know a thing about the field, dismissed my projects as too elementary, and gave the ribbon to the kid who said something like the seasons were caused by us being closer to the sun. Ah, memories.
The first time I heard of Ribena was less than two months ago. In an IRC chatroom, a British guy complained about a car passenger that through a paper cup of it out of the window while my friend was out for a walk. From the contents described to me, that stained pretty well, and my friend was reasonably furious. Still, it sounded like a good drink to me.