The Kitchen

OK, when we left off the mystery was: what exactly happened in Ribena New Zealand? Where did the vitamin C go?

I don't know for sure, but if I had to take an educated guess it would be one of two things: a reformulation with unintended consequences (unlikely, given how many blackcurrants are still going somewhere, and that the vitamin C content in other countries was not affected by the reformulation), or a change to the processing which destroyed the ascorbic acid somehow. Personally, I lean towards the latter.

Ascorbic acid is relatively fragile. To quote the infallible Wikipedia:

"Exposure to oxygen, metals, light and heat destroy ascorbic acid, so it must be stored in dark and cold and not in a metal container."

The drink probably really had all the blackcurrants it had in 1930's Britain. But somewhere in the construction of a new plant in New Zealand something probably went ... wrong. Perhaps the engineers thought it would be more efficient to do this step before that one. Perhaps the temperature in the new oven was a bit hotter than the one in Merrie Olde Englande. Perhaps it's even a genetic difference in blackcurrant stock, with the New Zealand strain producing a less hardy processing-resistant cell structure.

I don't know. And I don't care. Because everything I said in the last few paragraphs is immaterial. It's no excuse. After any change in the formulation or processing, the final product should be retested. It MUST be retested. And, clearly, it wasn't. Why? Why on earth not?

They could have had a world-class lab (like Medallion, who do the testing for us) perform the ascorbic acid test for $55. $55! Think about that for a moment. The $163,700 fine, the court costs, the apologetic advertisting, the recall, the incalculable lost sales and damage to the worldwide reputation - could have all be avoided for a measly $55.

And I imagine that, had Ribena been able to show that they had been in good faith, and had trusted the results of a respectable third-party lab, they would not have been so mauled in court, and consequently the press. They would probably get off with an apology and quiet recall. So why didn't they do they bother performing this cheap and simple test? How could they be so negligent (which I'm sure is what the Kiwi court was so displeased about)?

And that brings us to the title of this post: The Opaque Culture (or Culture of Opacity - I can't decide which sounds better). It is a mindset that the information I (or we, in the case of a corporation) possess does not have to be shared with the world at large. It is pernicious because it may never even be noticed or ever brought into question - like a fish doesn't think it odd he lives in water, or a human in air. It is probably more prevalent in older companies (GSK (established in 1715!) or the 1930's-era Ribena are good examples) which lived in a time when it was a lot harder to share information. But now we live in the Information Age and - excuse the hackneyed saying - the Internet has changed everything.

The reason this test was not performed again was because the people inside got lazy, and there was no strong outside pressure bearing down on them from outside to remind them to reform. Why was there no pressure? Because they knew (or thought they knew) that no one was watching. When was the last time someone asked to see the nutritional analysis? Do I have to bother? There is no expectation that these things should be read, that the information has to be shared. The Culture is Opaque.

Now, it is extremely difficult to combat laziness. Human nature is to not do work that you don't have to do. The best way to prevent it from happening is to make sure that the people who might be susceptible to laziness know that someone is looking over their shoulder. This is the theory of peer review in the scientific community. Don't be lazy, run the experiment again, consider every variable - or be torn to shreds at publication time.

But in an Opaque Culture there is no one looking over my shoulder - the glass is tinted. The light which would drive out the laziness cannot pass. And so laziness creeps in on cat's feet, a soft tread measuring years or even decades of complacence. Until one day, two 14-year old girls conduct a science experiment ... and the light, so long dammed up bursts forth, destroying all within.

It is for the benefit of the company itself, not only its customers, that they must abandon the Opaque Culture, and become Translucent. That's why here at FiberGourmet we conduct a third-party lab analysis of all of our products, and post them on our website for all to read.

In conclusion: Don't trust us. Keep on looking over our shoulders. We need it, and we thank you for it.