The Vape Industry Is Under Attack...

As some of you may have heard Elf bars are under some scrutiny at the moment and many big chain retailers such as Asda, Tesco, Waitrose, WHSmith and Sainsburys to name a few have removed all Elf Bar products from their shelves and Morrisons have decided to stop the sale of Elf Bars completely.

This has happened due to an Elf Bar being tested and found to have much higher nicotine levels than the UK law allows which is 2% nicotine. The product in question was a Watermelon Elf Bar which was found to be containing more than 50% more nicotine than it should have.

ITV have investigated this themselves and received a few statements;

A Tesco spokesperson said: “We have temporarily removed one ELFBAR vape line from sale as a precautionary measure, whilst the manufacturer urgently investigates these claims.”

Sainsburys followed suit with a spokesperson saying: “We are in close contact with our supplier and have temporarily removed the affected Elf Bar product whilst they investigate further.”

Asda confirmed to ITV News that it was working with the supplier to investigate the matter.

The removal of the product comes after a Daily Mail investigation, when the newspaper purchased multiple £5.99 vapes, at a Derbyshire Tesco, and sent them for testing.

Daily Mail also received a statement from Elf Bar "It appears that e-liquid tank sizes, which are standard in other markets [such as the US], have been inadvertently fitted to some of our UK products. We wholeheartedly apologise for the inconvenience this has caused." they added it would alert retailers and review its production process. ELFBAR insisted the "highly regrettable situation" did not compromise the product's safety.

Another source have stated that the Daily Mail investigation concludes that after the test were made they found that the Elf Bars had a tank capacity of 3.2-3.7ml which is above the UK law of 2ml maximum tank capacity. Elf bar apologised on this claim stating;

“We found out that some batches of the Elf Bar product have been overfilled in the UK. It appears that e-liquid tank sizes, which are standard in other markets, have been inadvertently fitted to some of our UK products. We wholeheartedly apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.”

So after our own research on these news reports its unclear what the actual issue is whether the nicotine is stronger than advertised or that the tanks were overfilled or even a mix of both.

Trading standards are mentioned in a fair few of these reports which we are not against as this will weed out an illegitimate products and maybe curb the sale to minors.

All of us at Rhythm n Vape have always had the opinion that traditional vaping using a rechargeable, refillable device is a much cheaper and more regulated way of vaping which is much more cost effective than spending £5.99+ per day on a disposable.

Not only is it more expensive but it is a global issue as the amount of disposables that end up in land fill per week is astonishing. Also another issue we see a lot is that most convenience stores, off-licenses etc are selling this products with little to no knowledge on vaping products and children are getting access to them which does not help the vaping industry at all.

We have had many customers in our stores not even realise that 2% (which is printed on the Disposable packaging and even on the device itself) is 20mg Nicotine strength and were under the assumption that 2% was a low dose where its the complete opposite so essentially have been vaping 20mg over a long duration and could potentially have made their nicotine addiction worse.

We have always been transparent with our views regarding Disposable E-Cigarettes and the damage it is doing to our planet and the cost surrounding a daily use Disposable habit so if you're a user of Disposables and would like to seek advice on transitioning over to a rechargeable, refillable vape kit then head into one of our vape shops and we will be more than happy to assist you on buying your new vape kit.

Sources;
- https://www.conveniencestore.co.uk/your-business/non-compliant-elf-bars-removed-from-sale-in-tesco/676034.article
- https://www.itv.com/news/2023-02-07/supermarkets-stop-selling-elf-bar-vapes-after-illegal-nicotine-levels-found
- https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/morrisons-elf-bar-removed-shelves-vape-b2279609.html