Posted on 12/19/2023 6:29:17 PM PST by nickcarraway
Buyer beware.
If you walk into a supermarket, convenience store, or other retailer anywhere in America and notice that they have Mountain Dew and Sunny Delight in their refrigerators, and Swedish Fish, Jolly Ranchers, and Twizzlers for sale in the candy aisle, you wouldn’t think anything about it. But if you wandered into a shop in England and saw those same drinks and candies, then there’s a good chance that retailer is about to get a visit from the Trading Standards office.
Trading Standards, the local authorities that enforce consumer-protection regulations, have seized thousands of dollars worth of common American candies and sodas, because they contain ingredients that have been banned in the United Kingdom. That’s right: in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, it’s illegal for shops to sell Mountain Dew, Jolly Ranchers, Twizzlers, Lemonheads, and some other candies that are familiar to Americans.
According to the BBC, trading standards officers confiscated over £8,000 ($10,000) worth of illegal candies from almost two dozen different candy shops in Burton-on-Trent and Staffordshire. A spokesperson for Trading Standards said that last year, £25 million ($31 million) worth of American candies — many of them that cannot be sold in the UK — were imported into the island nation. (Spokespeople from the brands that manufacture those candies for sale in the U.S. told the news outlet that the products were legal to make and sell within the United States, but any products that were sold in the UK were illegally imported and not being sold by the brands themselves.)
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"People are selling these products not realizing they have banned ingredients in them," Stephanie Young, a trading standards team leader in Staffordshire, told the BBC.
The Scotsman reports, some of the additives and compounds found in those candies include brominated vegetable oil, mineral oil, and erythrosine, which is also known as Red No. 3. Again, although they are legal in the American market, they cannot be used in candies or other foods in the United Kingdom. (Interestingly, Red No 3, also called E127, is approved for use in cocktail cherries and candied cherries, but can’t be used in any other food and beverages in the UK.)
“The UK prides itself on high food standards, but this very much relies on Trading Standards ensuring that what is on sale complies with the law,” John Herriman, the chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, told the Scotsman. “It’s therefore extremely worrying to learn that as we approach Christmas, confectionary that we know will appeal to children is on sale in UK high streets and that it could be linked to hyperactivity in kids, and even cancer.”
This isn’t the first time that legal-in-America products have caused issues in the United Kingdom. In 2021, the Get Baked bakery in Leeds, England, was reported to Trading Standards for using illegal sprinkles that had been imported from the U.S. on some of its cakes and cookies. The problem — other than a customer who couldn’t mind their own business — was that the sprinkles contained Red No. 3.
"[The Trading Standards inspector] said they'd had reports of us using illegal sprinkles, and I actually laughed by mistake, then realized he was being serious," Get Baked owner Rich Myers told the BBC at the time. "To whoever reported us to Trading Standards, all I have to say is: 'Dear Lord, what a sad little life Jane'."
The Trading Standards report meant that Get Baked had to make some of its most popular products without sprinkles. "It is HIGHLY unlikely that we will find any legal sprinkles that we will use as a replacement,” Myers wrote on Facebook. “British sprinkles just aren't the same, they're totally [crap] and I hate them. I am extremely passionate about sprinkles."
So if you’re craving a Mountain Dew or a package of Jolly Ranchers on your next trip to London, you’re just going to have to hang tight until you get back in the good ol’ USA.
Everybody tells me that around here. It’s a nervous habit I guess.
Either the UK government is right or the US government is.
What’s wrong with Red #3 other than it is the same color as a MAGA hat?
There are no lungs in our haggis...
I have three friends who are FDA import inspectors and one who's a USDA inspector specializing in imports. They tell me the two worst are Brazil and China. There are others, but they don't import very much.
Does the UK ban “clot shots” that are commercially marketed and made mandatory by their government?
Well, one of the old standards:
Heaven:
The police are British
The cooks are French
The engineers are German
The administrators are Swiss
The lovers are Italian
Hell:
The police are German
The cooks are British
The engineers are Italian
The administrators are French
The lovers are Swiss
Can’t ban the likes of Gates and Monsanto. If you can’t pronounce an ingredient or a food never rots on your kitchen counter, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.
Ok this is a comedy piece
Maybe it's true, but they still don't know how to season anything.
Hell:
The police are German
The cooks are British
The engineers are Italian
The administrators are French
The lovers are Swiss
You left out the best part: “And the whole thing is run by Italians”.
They can have their hagis sheep entrails and all.
That will hide your toe fungus & you won’t have to paint your nails.
Yeah. They feed their cattle fish meal. Makes the beef taste terrible. Most dishes are barely seasoned. I grew up in the South where folks know how cook. 😊
One of the best breakfast buffets on the planet was in London, at the Inter-Continental at Hyde Park Corner. I also had a few good fancy dinners.
The absolute worst sandwich I ever had was at the Hard Rock London.
Every other meal I had in the UK was unmemorable. I’ve had better food at the ballgame.
Agreed…it is a comedy bit.
“”You’d probably have to consume a truckload of red food coloring every week of the year before it would harm you.””
They pump lab rats so full of the stuff, I believe it would be really big news if a lab rat DID NOT get cancer.
Just like the rest of Europe.
haggis is quite good. scottish food in general isn’t the same as english food, and imo is better (often much better).
as much as I have tried for so long, I still don’t care for neeps (mashed turnips).
You can have my sprinkles when you pry them out of my cold, dead, ice cream covered fingers.
It is said that if you go to heaven, you will have an Italian lover, a Swiss mechanic, a French cook, and the English will run everything. If you go to hell, you will have a Swiss lover, a French mechanic, an English cook, and the Italians will run everything.
More than 30 years ago the Food and Drug Administration told the cosmetics industry that it could no longer use an artificial color called FD&C Red No. 3, also known as Red Dye No. 3 and Red Dye 3. That’s because high doses of it had been found to cause cancer in animals.
In September 2023 the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a food and health watchdog group, sent a petition to the FDA urging the agency to prohibit Red Dye No. 3 in food, dietary supplements, and ingested drugs. Consumer Reports signed it, along with 20 other advocacy groups and three individuals.
Red No. 3 dye, also known as erythrosine, is a synthetic dye derived from petroleum.
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