Counterfeiting is the imitation of a food or beverage, including its brand, packaging, or labeling, with the intent to deceive customers and consumers into thinking they are getting the authentic product.
In a food fraud context, alcoholic beverages such as vodkas and whiskies are often affected by counterfeiting. For example, in July, Glen’s Vodka, the leading vodka brand in Scotland and the second best-selling spirit in the UK was affected by a counterfeiting scandal, after authorities detected fake versions of the product in the market.
The fake Glen’s vodka contained the harmful chemical isopropyl alcohol, and consumers were warned to seek urgent medical care by Food Standards Scotland in the wake of the discovery.
But it’s not only alcoholic drinks that are targeted by counterfeiters.
Non-alcoholic drinks, including copies of premium brands of carbonated beverages (soft drinks) are also made by counterfeiters. Reports about the counterfeiting of soft drinks surface quite frequently in my food fraud searches, most often in Pakistan.
Here’s an incident report I published in June, for example:
Authorities confiscated bottles of counterfeit soft drinks (3,900 bottles), artificial sweeteners (250 kg), empty bottles (4,000), fake bottle caps (60 kg), counterfeit labels (200 kg), filling machines, chemicals, gas cylinders and storage drums – Pakistan | Source: Issue 193, The Rotten Apple.
Last week, while researching counterfeit soft drinks, I stumbled upon a consumer’s musings about possibly fake Diet Coke, which piqued my interest.
While we know that counterfeit soft drinks are discovered every year by authorities in Pakistan, it’s rare to hear a consumer perspective. This is likely because consumers will be either unaware they have purchased a ‘fake’ and so don’t think to complain about it, or they complain to the legitimate brand owner, who does not publicise the information.
So to find a first-person account from a consumer of ‘fake’ soft drink was intriguing to me.
What made it more intriguing was that the consumer was in London, England.
It’s easy to imagine that counterfeit versions of low-cost products only occur in the developing world. However, soft drink fraud does happen in wealthy countries.
In fact, just last week, a man in the United States was sentenced for his role in a massive multi-year counterfeiting operation affecting 5-hour Energy drinks. At the height of the operation in 2015, it was shipping 75,000 bottles per day from an illicit manufacturing facility in California.
Could this also be happening in London with Diet Coke?
Here’s what the consumer, One_Inflation_9475 said on Reddit/r/london last month:
“I suspect that some of the soda sold in cheap kebab shops are counterfeit. The taste always put me off. So today, I compared it. I bought a Diet Coke bottle from a kebab shop. It was a bit harsh and seemed acidic. Then, I bought same thing from Tesco and its taste was soft and felt good to my taste buds.
“Price of the meal deal is also a suspect: £5 for a burger, handful of fries and a bottle of soda. What do you guys think?”
“I suspect that some of the soda sold in cheap kebab shops are counterfeit”
What do I think? I think s/he could be right in thinking the bottle of Diet Coke they got in a very low-cost meal deal from a takeaway shop is counterfeit.
There are, of course, other reasons the product could have tasted ‘harsh’ and ‘acidic’ compared to Diet Coke from Tesco. Notably, artificially sweetened beverages lose flavour over time as the sweeteners degrade.
Another reason, proposed by responders to the consumer’s post, is that soft drinks “taste different in different countries.” However, I’m not buying it.
The consumer would almost certainly have noticed the name of an offshore bottler or the presence of a foreign language on the label after they became suspicious of the product. And if they had discovered it was from overseas, I believe they would have attributed the taste difference to that, rather than claiming the product was counterfeit.
Anyway, how exactly would a takeaway shop owner obtain offshore versions of a product belonging to a company that is famous for tightly controlling its sales channels?
Perhaps the store owner (illegally) received soft drinks imported from another country? Perhaps from a place like Pakistan? Perhaps the imports were fakes.
We cannot know for sure. But it’s worth remembering that counterfeit drinks are manufactured by criminals who cut corners, ignore safety protocols, use dirty water and non-food-grade chemicals, and generally endanger the lives of consumers.
My advice to any consumer or business who suspects they have been given a counterfeit product is to keep the package and tell the brand owner. Provide photos of the labels, the batch code and the best before date so the company can hunt down the counterfeiters who are trashing their brand and selling potentially dangerous products.
The owner of 5-hour Energy realised their product was being counterfeited after a salesperson purchased a box of product from a distributor that had stopped ordering from them and discovered it had a different taste, color and smell to authentic 5-hour Energy. Investigators acting on their behalf seized more than 2.6 million counterfeit bottles during subsequent investigations.
Could counterfeit Diet Coke be available in London, England? Perhaps. I hope not, but stranger things have happened.
In short: A consumer in London, England, suspects the Diet Coke sold by a kebab shop (multiple purchases) is counterfeit 🍏 Soft drinks are affected by counterfeiting 🍏 Pakistan authorities frequently report the seizure of counterfeit copies of famous brands of soft drink 🍏 Large volumes of a popular energy drink were counterfeited in the United States in the 2010s 🍏 Consumers or businesses supplied with ‘wrong’ tasting foods should report their concerns to the brand owner who can investigate suspected counterfeits🍏
Main sources (minor sources are hyperlinked in the text):
Schnapp, D. and Frankfurter, B. (2016) ‘Counterfeiting in our own backyard’, New York State Bar Association Journal, 34(2), pp. 21–23. Available online: https://foxrothschild.gjassets.com/content/uploads/2016/10/SchnappFrankfurterArticle-InsideCorpCounselFall16.pdf
Reddit.com. (2025). I suspect that some of the soda sold in cheap kebab shops are counterfeit. r/london. [online] Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/1n8gt70/i_suspect_that_some_of_the_soda_sold_in_cheap/
Read more: 🍏 Fake Coke follow-up | Issue 210 🍏
This article was originally published at The Rotten Apple – a weekly newsletter for food professionals