The Kitchen

Maybe you've heard the story: it certainly makes for good copy. Ribena, a division of the GlaxoSmithKline conglomerate Goliath, brought to its knees by a scrappy underdog David, a pair of high-school students! Liars caught red-handed! Right?

But what happened? How could a respected international company, ever mindful of its reputation, and staffed full of ostensibly intelligent and capable individuals have not only done something wrong - but done something which is so easily detectable, so manifestly and blatantly wrong that it could be found out by 14-year-old girls?

One important point is that not all Ribena ended up like this. This is something Ribena is very careful to stress, and it even seems to be supported by third-party evidence. I find this interesting, not for Ribena's reasons of damage control, but because it means the product is theoretically sound. It seems unlikely that they would bother creating different formulations for what is essentially the same culture (England, New Zealand, Australia - it's all the Anglosphere, none of whom want Octopus Dumpling flavor). So apparently, the formulation of the drink can (and in some countries does) contain the requisite levels of vitamin C. So what went wrong in New Zealand?

Some have decided to turn this into a full-fledged conspiracy theory, which is already making its rounds on the blogs, chalking it up (I suppose) to widespread venality and greed in the New Zealand branch:

Now that the deception has been discovered they have succeeded not only in exposing the complete absence of vitamins in the concoction but also, it seems to follow, an absence of blackcurrants. Whatever is in the carton besides dissolved sugar and flavoured water it is not something the makers want to promote.

I don't buy that for three reasons. First, the New Zealand blackcurrant crop certainly goes somewhere. Ribena NZ claims they use more than half of it to make their drinks (although their entire website is down at the time of this post, except for that hastily constructed front-page apology/legal-CYA). And I'm inclined to believe them. That isn't one of the claims that they were sued over in court, and I can't even see room for ambiguity, as in their blackcurrant/orange claim (which really does look odd - but is hardly a smoking gun for reasons that would make this post even longer).

Second, note that a false ingredient label - one of the few things the FDA goes after people about - was not one of the charges. Only the vitamin C content was wrong, not the ingredient list.

These are the objective reasons I disagree with this theory. But a more compelling reason is psychological. At some point, this decision had to be made by some person, some warm, thinking, feeling, living, breathing human who goes home at 5:00 to his wife and children. Corporations are virtual people. They do not do anything on their own, a fact people tend to forget when anthropomorphizing.

So consider it from the point of view of the executive decision maker. What motivation does he have to intentionally screw the customer? He doesn't benefit directly, the company does. He won't see whatever pennies he managed to save his corporate masters appearing in his paycheck.

And looks what he stands only to lose! He could be fired, his industry reputation (and with it future job prospects) destroyed forever. He could became a personal pariah, especially if someone had become ill as a result of his actions (imagine if some kids had gotten scurvy - I know it's unlikely given the excess of food in our modern Western world, but that was the original reason Ribena was created in 1930's Britain). He might even be open to civil and criminal prosecution. There is no way any creature who cares more for his own survival than that of some uncaring, impersonal, corporate monolith would make such a horrendous choice. It's just not possible.

So this wasn't intentional. It must have been a mistake. Again, I repeat the question: What happened? I have a theory, but that will wait until the next post, because this one is already long enough. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion in part II of our exciting new series, "The Ribena Incident".