"Two New Zealand schoolgirls humbled one of the world's biggest food and drugs companies after their school science experiment found that their ready-to-drink Ribena contained almost no trace of vitamin C. Students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo tested the blackcurrant cordial against rival brands to test their hypothesis that cheaper brands were less healthy. Instead, their tests found that the Ribena contained a tiny amount of vitamin C, while another brand's orange juice drink contained almost four times more. "We thought we were doing it wrong. We thought we must have made a mistake," Anna told New Zealand's Weekend Herald. The girls were both 14 and students at Pakuranga College in Auckland when they did the experiment in 2004. Given Ribena's advertising claims that "the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges", they were astonished and wrote to the manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). When they got no response, they phoned the company, but were given short shrift. "They didn't even really answer our questions. They just said it's the blackcurrants that have it, then they hung up," Jenny said." - April Buchheit from Bookmarklet

Their test was apparently conducted in 2004. A follow-up article shows that GSK ended up paying a fine of NZ$ 217,500 in 2007: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz... (a picture of the two girls is included in that article). This one is interesting too: http://www.smh.com.au/news... - Stephen Mack #TeamMomo

The story is confusing. In one place it says "They calculated that each 100ml of Ribena contained about 22mg of vitamin C." In another place it says "It also alleged its testing found ready-to-drink Ribena contained no detectable level of vitamin C." Why the discrepancy? - Gabe

Gabe, I noticed that too. I wonder if it's because they were testing regular Ribena (concentrate) as well as the ready-to-drink variety? BTW, I was born in England and lived there until I was 12. I drank oceans of Ribena as a kid. I still miss it here in the States, although of course the imported kind is available (just too expensive and doesn't taste quite right). - Stephen Mack #TeamMomo