Barely had the fuss over Weetabix’s sourcing of non-UK wheat died down last week than questions over another brand’s British credentials began to pop up.
It transpires that Carling British Cider may not be all that seems – and the clue is in the name. The brand’s keenness to promote the new launch’s Britishness contrasts nicely with Weetabix: while the latter is investing heavily to overcome its wheat problems but seemed strangely reluctant to sing about it, it transpires that the Carling brand may contain only 10% UK-sourced apples.
Weetabix could have used this as an opportunity to push the positives of its pro-UK stance, but was strangely reluctant to do so – perhaps because it admitted to the Grocer.co.uk that it had started to source non-UK wheat in November/December. However it took several days for it to confirm to us that this actually only amounted to 4%, and only specific products that required particular colour characteristics. So despite using 96% British wheat, Weetabix doesn’t really seem to be using this as a marketing plug.
Contrast this to Carling, whose stance is that because the cider is made in the UK by a Hereford cidermaker – and therefore counts as British under the rules – the proportions of UK apples are adequate to promote it as British. Even though they admit they want to increase those proportions.
While the cider itself certainly hits some of the right notes taste-wise – it’s an incredibly smooth and refreshing drink and the International Brewing Awards agrees, having just given it a gold in the cider competition – this 10% issue does leave me with a slightly bitter aftertaste.
Many shoppers – including me – choose British products over imported ones in order to support British farmers and growers and I can’t help feeling cheated by the revelation. And I’m sure I won’t be the only one.
(Of course Weetabix is now owned by Bright Foods, a Chinese firm, while Carling’s parent company is Molson Coors, a North American brewer, but we’ll skip over these details for now.)
If it says British on the bottle, surely consumers should be able to expect that it is British in the bottle, too. Or at the very least, a lot more than just 10%.
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