When Red Bull announced that it was releasing a “Red Bull Cola” product to complement its Red Bull Energy Drink, the company emphasized the use of natural flavorings, without phosphoric acid, preservatives, or artificial coloring. As the Red Bull page for the cola product states:
“The cola from Red Bull is a unique blend of ingredients, all from 100 % natural sources.
In addition, it is the only cola which contains both the original Kola nut and the Coca leaf. Therefore, it is a very special recipe. Or what else would you have expected from Red Bull?
The result is a natural, not-too-sweet cola taste, which comes from using the right plant extracts.”
The soda maker proudly shows us pictures of Red Bull Cola’s ingredients to emphasize that it has nothing to hide.
The first ingredient on the list is “coca leaf.” which has lead food product safety officials to raise concerns about the safety of the product.
TIME magazine recently reported that
“The [Health Institute in the state of North Rhine Westphalia] examined Red Bull Cola in an elaborate chemical process and found traces of cocaine,” Bernhard Kuehnle, head of the food safety department at Germany’s federal ministry for consumer protection, told the German press on Sunday.”
Further press reports indicate that retailers in six German states have been told to remove Red Bull Cola from their shelves. So far, no other authorities have exercised similar powers to remove Red Bull Cola from the markets in their jurisdiction.
The fear apparently stems from the assumption that inclusion of Coca leaves in the product means that there is “cocaine” in the product, which would not only be a health concern, but a narcotics concern.
But international narcotics law requires that the the cocaine alkaloids in coca leaves must be removed before they can be shipped outside of the Andean region of Bolivia where they are grown. These “de-cocained” leaves are used as flavoring agents in a wide variety of foods throughout the world.
Whether the minute traces of cocaine were falsely detected as a result of hyper-sensitive testing, the traces of the cocaine alkaloids are left over from the cocaine removal process, or were deliberately put into the cola drink by Red Bull hasn’t been determined. Red Bull representatives were quick to issue statements that their use of coca leaves are strictly as a flavoring agent.
While food safety authorities in some German states were rushing to exercise their product banning powers, there were calmer reactions from the German federal authorities and other authorities worldwide. The general consensus was that even if the samples colas had trace amounts in the levels reported, they posed no health risk to the public. News reports indicate that the conducted tests found 0.13 micrograms of cocaine per can and that an average person would have to consume approximately 12,000 liters of the cola to feel any adverse effects from the cocaine alkaloids.
The publicity surrounding the detection of these trace amounts of cocaine alkaloids in Red Bull Cola has reinforced the image of Red Bull’s marketing themes of high energy drinks, which are all natural and pack an “extra kick”.
The issue however has caused a dilemma among German authorities. Narcotics authorities in Germany are now faced with determining whether the product’s trace amounts of cocaine alkaloids violates German narcotics laws and are now faced with the difficult decision whether to enforce the narcotics laws despite the virtually unanimous consensus among health officials is that there is no health risk associated with it.
[...] German Authorities Remove Red Bull Cola from Store Shelves … [...]