High school science experiment doesn't get a C

Guambat first became familiar with Ribena in Australia. It's a tasty drink made from black currants and marketing. This Wikipedia entry is an unofficial history. This is the official home page of UK Ribena.

Ribena is made by the global pharmaceutical leviathan, GlaxoSmithKline. Their Australian website lists Ribena under its "nutritionals" products. Another of its sites puts the product under "consumer healthcare" products.

Evidently a couple of Kiwi schoolgirls analyzed Ribena, which, when Guambat first sampled it in Australia, claimed to have a healthy dose of Vitamin C in it. The schoolgirls just couldn't see it.

Ribena parent fined, humbled by curious minds

In Australia, GSK has admitted that its claims about Ribena may have misled consumers.

It agreed that its cartoned, ready-to-drink Ribena, which it claimed had seven milligrams of vitamin C per 100 millilitres, in fact had no detectable vitamin C content.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said last week that claims on the nutrition information panel of Ribena's ready-to-drink cartons implied the product had four times the vitamin C of orange juice drinks, when this was not correct.

The case was brought after a science experiment in 2004 by 14-year-old Auckland schoolgirls Jenny Suo and Anna Devathasan raised questions about the vitamin C content in Ribena.

The girls were astonished at their findings and wrote to the makers. When they got no response, they phoned the company but were given short shrift.

Ms Suo, now 17, was in court for yesterday's ruling and said she was happy the company had been held to account, but felt the fine was far too low. "They are a multi-billion dollar company. I am sure that fine wouldn't have even left a dent in their pocket," she said.