EDITORIAL: Hats off to teens over Ribena rort

It is hardly reassuring that the interests of New Zealand consumers should rest in the hands of a couple of 14-year-olds. Yet were it not for their school science experiment the Ribena Vitamin C hoax might never have been rumbled.
It is a heart-warming David-and-Goliath story: Pakuranga College students Anna Devasathasan and Jenny Suo test Vitamin C levels of their favourite juices for a science fair. When their tests show ready-to-drink Ribena is lacking in Vitamin C they think there must be some mistake so they do it again. When they approach Ribena owner GlaxoSmithKlein with the results they are given the classic brush-off. So they take their findings to the Commerce Commission.
That disdain shown by the multinational has given additional satisfaction to it being brought low by a prosecution for making false claims about the drink. While most will agree that the fine of $217,000 is a pathetic penalty for a company with a turnover of $61 billion last year, the humiliation caused by yesterday's decision by Judge Phil Gittos (who described GSK's claims as "not just incorrect but wholly false") will be enormous when translated into waning sales.
Ribena's selling point, vying for attention above the common herd, has been its Vitamin C. For years Kiwi mothers have bought the drink for their children on that basis alone, unaware it was all hokum and that Ribena not only contained no detectable Vitamin C but had more sugar than found in a bottle of Coca-Cola. What was touted as health food is revealed as "junk" and of no more nutritional value than a McDonalds vanilla ice cream.
GSK's cynical claim that the statement on the packaging - "the blackcurrants in Ribena contain four times the Vitamin C of oranges" - was "factually correct" is worthy of Tui billboard derision.
The company said it will improve its testing methods. If that is more than mere obfuscation it should give us all cause to wonder how many other drink manufacturers have systems so primitive (or staff so incompetent) that they cannot match the achievements of two schoolgirls.
New Zealand has Anna and Jenny, alone, to thank for "outing" Ribena. The penalty and shame of the case are intended to concentrate the minds of other manufacturers tempted to play fast and loose with the facts.
Unfortunately, we still have only the manufacturer's word for it ... in which case it is to be hoped that future students, who cast about for something for a science fair, will subject other popular drinks to the same rigour, for all our sakes.