Wendyl Nissen: Shaken up by the missing chocolate

Supreme Chocolate Milkshake Syrup - $4.19 for 1 litre. Photo / Wendyl Nissen

Product labelling is highly irresponsible, the sell line is ridiculous and the sugar content is on the high side

This product wins two awards from me. The first award is for the most verbose and ridiculous sell lines on the back of the bottle.

"Everyone likes milkshakes. Even people that say they don't ...

"No one associates milkshakes with divorce, collapsed finance companies, or war. It's a magical drink that only turns up when good memories are being made. I don't know why."

Who doesn't know? The bottle of syrup? The little man hiding in the bottle of syrup? Since when did a bottle of syrup have an opinion?

There are more gems like this should you choose to spend the five minutes it takes to read them all next time you are in the supermarket.

The second award is for producing a product which purports to be chocolate but actually has no chocolate in it.

Ingredients

• Water - This tells us that this product is mostly water.

• Sugar - There is no sugar quantity for this product when made up with milk, which is irresponsible. Not many people would eat 30ml of this straight from the bottle. If you do, however, you'll get 12.3g of sugar, add that to 360ml (which is the 12 parts milk you are supposed to add to your 30ml of syrup) and you'll get 31.8g of sugar - full fat milk has 19.5g of sugar per 360ml. So 31.8g of sugar is about 7.5 teaspoons of sugar.

• Thickener (415) - This is acacia gum which is a natural product from the acacia tree.

• Acidity regulator (330) - This is citric acid.

• Flavour (contains colour 155, 133) - I'm going to take the opinion that there is no cocoa included in this chocolate syrup, because it does not appear on the ingredients label. Which does seem very odd because the syrup isn't even called "chocolate-flavoured syrup" it's just "chocolate syrup" which would imply that there is some chocolate in here somewhere.

Instead there are artificial flavours, as no mention of natural is made here, and some artificial colours. Brown HT (155) is not used in the United States because it can cause allergic reactions but it is allowed here and in the European Union. And Brilliant Blue (133) has been the topic of many studies, most recently by the European Food Safety Authority, and is currently allowed in foods.

I would have thought that by the simple addition of some cocoa the makers of this syrup could have taken care of flavour and colour naturally.

• Preservatives (211) - This is sodium benzoate which occurs naturally.

My recommendations

I had heard rumours that there were chocolate products on the market which actually contained no chocolate, but have never been able to find them. Until now. This doesn't really taste like chocolate to me, more a synthetic copy, which is what it is.

I think the producers of this product are being highly irresponsible not including the word "flavoured" in its name and also not giving the total sugar count when made up to the packet instructions, as many other manufacturers do. And I think it's a shame they couldn't see their way to adding some cocoa for a touch of realism.

If you're into milkshakes because you don't want to think about your divorce, collapsed finance company or war, then by all means make one. But find a product which actually has chocolate in it and save on the artificial colours and flavours.

Highlights

• A chocolate product that has no chocolate in it.
• Made up with milk will deliver 7.5 teaspoons of sugar.
• Uses artificial flavours and colours.