Ribena facts for kids
Logo used since 2020
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| Type | Soft drink/fruit juice concentrate |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Suntory |
| Distributor | Suntory |
| Country of origin | England |
| Region of origin | Bristol |
| Introduced | 1938 (H.W. Carter & Co) |
| Colour | Purple |
| Flavour | Blackcurrant Strawberry Blueberry Orange |
Ribena, pronounced rye-BEE-nuh, is a popular drink brand. It's known for its blackcurrant flavor. You can find Ribena as a fizzy drink, a still drink, or a concentrated syrup you mix with water. It comes in bottles, cans, and multi-packs.
Ribena started in England. A company called GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) used to make it. But in 2013, a Japanese company named Suntory bought the brand.
For a long time, Ribena was seen as a very healthy drink, especially for kids. This was because the British government gave it to children during World War II as a way to get vitamin C. Over the years, Ribena made many different types of soft drinks. However, in the 2000s, some questions came up about how much vitamin C and sugar were really in the drinks. This changed how people saw Ribena, and by 2013, it was mostly known just as a regular soft drink.
In 2013, people around the world bought about £500 million worth of Ribena each year. That's when GSK sold Ribena and another drink called Lucozade to Suntory for a lot of money – £1.35 billion! In 2018, the recipe for Ribena in the UK changed. They added artificial sweeteners because the government introduced a tax on sugary drinks.
Contents
The Story of Ribena
How Ribena Started
Ribena was first made in England by a company in Bristol called HW Carter. It began as a blackcurrant squash. Scientists at the Long Ashton Agriculture and Horticulture Research Station helped develop it. A biochemist named Audrey Green and a scientist named Vernon Charley worked on it in 1933. They found that blackcurrants had a lot of vitamin C. The drink was named Ribena in 1938. Its name comes from the scientific name for blackcurrant, Ribes nigrum.
Ribena During Wartime
During World War II, it was hard to get fruits rich in vitamin C, like oranges, in the United Kingdom. This was because German submarines attacked cargo ships. So, the government encouraged people to grow more blackcurrants. This made the country's blackcurrant crop much bigger. People also collected Rose hips to make syrup.
In December 1941, the government started a special program called the Vitamin Welfare Scheme. This program gave blackcurrant syrup and cod liver oil for free to children under two years old. Later, in April 1942, orange juice from the US Lend-Lease program replaced the blackcurrant syrup.
After the War
Ribena's production moved to a new factory in Coleford in 1947. It's still made there today.
The company that made Ribena, Carters, was bought by the Beecham Group in 1955. Over the years, Beecham merged with other companies, eventually becoming GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2000. GSK and the companies before it made many different versions of Ribena. But it kept its image as a "healthy food" in the UK and other countries.
Changes and Challenges
In 2001, a special Ribena drink called Ribena Toothkind was advertised as being better for teeth. However, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority said the advertisements were misleading. They ruled that claims about the drink not causing tooth decay should be removed. In 2003, another group, the Food Commission, said that regular Ribena had too much sugar. They worried it could contribute to childhood obesity.
In 2004, two students in New Zealand did a science experiment. They tested the vitamin C levels in their favorite fruit drinks. They found that a "Ready to Drink Ribena" product had almost no vitamin C. This was surprising because Ribena was famous for having lots of vitamin C. A TV show called Fair Go shared their story. After more tests, in 2007, the New Zealand Commerce Commission took legal action against GlaxoSmithKline. GSK admitted they had misled customers and had to pay a fine. They also had to put out new advertisements and a statement on their website to correct the information. GSK said this problem only affected products sold in Australia and New Zealand. They stated that Ribena in other places, like the UK, had the vitamin C levels shown on the label.
In 2007, a study in Australia found that the Ribena fruit drink product only had 5% blackcurrant juice.
By 2013, Ribena was making about £500 million in sales worldwide each year. GSK decided to sell Ribena and Lucozade to focus more on its medicine business. The Japanese company Suntory bought them for £1.35 billion in September 2013.
A fizzy version of Ribena was first released in 2011 but stopped being made in 2014. It came back to stores in 2020 with blackcurrant and raspberry flavors. This happened because fizzy flavored drinks were becoming more popular.
In 2022, Ribena teamed up with Hasbro to create a special Ribena-themed Monopoly game. They gave away 10,000 of these games through an online competition.
See also
