Coca-Cola Recalls 5 Soft Drink Brands Over High Chlorate Levels

Coca-Cola’s European bottling division has issued a significant recall of certain soft drinks across Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands due to elevated levels of the chemical chlorate, which is known to disrupt thyroid function. Although the company has indicated that the risk to consumers is low, they are taking precautionary measures to ensure customer safety.

The affected beverages include popular Coca-Cola brands such as Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Tropico, and Minute Maid.

This recall is a response to the discovery that these drinks contained higher levels of chlorate, a chemical that can derive from chlorine disinfectants commonly used in food processing and water treatment.

Excessive chlorate exposure is linked to potential health risks, particularly because it can interfere with the thyroid’s ability to absorb iodine, thus temporarily altering thyroid hormone levels.

This poses greater risks for individuals with thyroid disorders, as well as for infants and children.

However, according to the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, one-time exposure to these levels of chlorate has only a negligible effect on health.

The European Union has stringent regulations regarding the permissible levels of chlorate residues in food.

In response to the incident, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners assured Euronews Health that independent expert analysis found the likelihood of any significant risk to consumers to be extremely low.

The specific products involved in the recall bear production codes ranging from 328 GE to 338 GE. Consumers can identify these codes on the bottom of cans or on the necks of bottles.

The company is collaborating with authorities in other European nations that received shipments of the affected products; however, no additional recalls have been reported thus far.

The spokesperson emphasized that the quality and safety of their products remains Coca-Cola’s top priority.

This recall followed a previous incident last year, when Coca-Cola in Austria had to remove millions of plastic bottles from the market due to concerns that they might have contained metal fragments.

Source: euronews