Check your shelves and remove illegal products from sale
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) recently issued a warning that American sweets and fizzy drinks with known links to hyperactivity and cancer in children have flooded the UK.
Advice to retailers
- If you are offered illegal American candy for sale in your shop, do not buy
- Check your shelves and remove any illegal Amercian candy from sale
- Warwickshire Trading Standards has already begun to visit shops and seize banned products
- Traders requiring more help and advice can contact Warwickshire Trading Standards via the Citizens Advice Consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133
The illegal American candy and drinks cannot be sold in the UK. Consumers that buy them could be at risk from a lack of allergy labelling, or the inclusion of ingredients that don’t meet high UK food safety standards.
One way for retailers to spot illegal American imports is to look at the label. If the labelling shows American weights (fluid ounce and ounce as opposed grams and millilitres), it is an import and the food labelling needs to be compliant with UK laws, with no unauthorised ingredients in the produce.
The following is a list of illegal imported products, not manufactured for the UK market and already identified and seized as they contain unauthorised ingredients (this list is not exhaustive):
- Mountain Dew canned and bottled drinks of many varieties
- Marinda
- Sunny D
- Swedish Fish
- Dubble Bubble
- Jolly Rancher gummies and hard candy
- Hot Tamales
- Twizzlers
- Lemonhead
The American imported items that have been seized contained the following unauthorised additives not manufactured for the UK market:
- Brominated Vegetable oil (BVO)
- E127, Erythrosine (shown on US products as Red 3) – this is allowed in cocktail cherries, but not in sweets
- Mineral Oil
- Bleached Flour
When the following additives are used, a disclaimer is required to state that these additives can cause hyperactivity in Children:
- Sunset yellow FCF (E110)
- quinoline yellow (E104)
- carmoisine (E122)
- allura red (E129)
- tartrazine (E102) - Yellow 5
- ponceau 4R (E124)
And the following, which are allowed in food but not in drinks:
- Calcium disodium EDTA (E385)
- Erythorbic acid (E315)
There is evidence that E127 or Erythrosine, which is shown on American products as Red 3 can contribute to triggering hyperactive behaviour especially in children and while it’s still allowed in cocktail cherries, it shouldn’t be in sweets.
Mineral oil carries the risk of contamination with other compounds, which in turn are capable of forming cancers.
Calcium disodium EDTA is allowed in food but not in drinks. In animal studies it’s caused adverse reproductive and developmental effects and in mice has been shown to contribute to cancer of the colon.
Additives are only authorised for use in the UK if they have been tested and proved to be safe for its intended use, in that particular type of food or drink; there is a justifiable technological need to use it; and its use does not mislead the consumer.