KEY POINTS:
Ribena sales have dropped sharply since it was revealed the ready-to-drink product contained a lot of sugar and no detectable vitamin C.
Foodstuffs (Auckland), which covers the North Island from Turangi and Taumarunui north, said yesterday that sales were 12 per cent lower in the past fortnight than they were in the same fortnight a year ago.
But the company's retail general manager, Mark Baker, said other factors, such as promotions by rival products or supermarkets, could be affecting sales.
The company operates the New World and Pak'n Save supermarkets.
An Auckland Pak'n Save store duty manager told the Herald yesterday that only one-fifth as many ready-to-drink Ribena multipacks had been sold in the past week as were sold the week before.
Progressive Enterprises, which holds about 45 per cent of the New Zealand grocery market, has also reported a fall in Ribena sales.
Progressive has the Foodtown, Woolworths and Countdown supermarkets.
Its merchandising general manager, Mark Brosnan, said sales were down 8.1 per cent in the past fortnight compared with last year.
Sales of the ready-to-drink juice were down 9.6 per cent and cordial sales had dropped by 6.4 per cent.
Mr Brosnan said he would assess the figures this week. "We are very much keeping an eye on it."
Ribena's maker, GlaxoSmithKline, was fined $217,000 last week after pleading guilty to 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.
It accepted Commerce Commission charges that it was wrong to claim that ready-to-drink Ribena contained 7mg of vitamin C per 100ml, or 44 per cent of the recommended daily intake.
A company spokeswoman in London said the problem arose when Ribena in Australia and New Zealand was left on shop shelves for too long causing the vitamin C to degrade.
But that claim was rejected by Professor John Birkbeck of Massey University's Institute of Food Nutrition and Human Health, who said if cartons were properly sealed the vitamin C should be stable.
The Weekend Herald found ready-to-drink Ribena contained about 25 per cent more sugar than Coca Cola.
The company has said it is reformulating the drink and setting up more accurate testing.
