Is something up with UK (chocolate) RTD at the moment?

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Hi,

First time ordering RTD, I got a box of vanilla and chocolate each (berry is OOS). Vanilla is fine, but chocolate has a really weird artificial side flavor to it. I can taste that there’s a nice chocolate flavor foundation, but there’s an additional flavor there too that makes it undrinkable (for me). It’s weird because if it was inherent to RTD I’d expect it in vanilla too, but I can’t detect it there.

After reading around the forum I saw that there are supply issues for RTD and maybe some EU batches around but that this was planned to be resolved by April? How can I tell which batch I’ve got? The chocolate does have a number on the back with ‘EU’ that the vanilla doesn’t have, but the bottles are the same style (foil cap, etc.).

Thing is, I’ve not had RTD before so I don’t know if the bad chocolate taste is because: (a) I got a bad batch, regardless of what’s going on with EU, (b) the EU stuff tastes different/weird, or © it always tasted like this.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

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I always tasted that under both chocolate and vanilla

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I think it’s possibly there with the vanilla (drinking one now and trying to tell), but maybe my brain thinks it matches better so I can’t detect it as well. It’s so strong on chocolate that I would wonder how anyone else could drink it, though I guess it’s hard to tell if it’s subjectively bad or something actually did go wrong. I’ve consumed all kinds of meal-replacement and protein powders that had an artificial chocolate flavor but nothing had this bad of a side-taste.

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Uk is still currently getting EU RTD.
I’ve not tried the eu chocolate so can’t really comment but I disliked the eu vanilla, and love US berry and chocolate

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I think I’m actually getting a mix each time I receive an order. Chocolate says produced in Austria, but vanilla doesn’t. Maybe that’s why I find vanilla OK.

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easy to tell the difference - EU bottles have a foil seal under the cap and the resin code for the plastic on the base of the bottle is 4. US bottles use tamper proof caps and no foil seals and resin code is 1.

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@Phil_C Well, they have foil seals but the resin code is 02. The chocolate definitely says made in Austria, the vanilla I can’t see any country of origin (maybe that means UK?).

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yes sorry - code 2 is is HDPE (4 is low) so yes they are the Euro bottles.

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Picked up a bottle of chocolate in Sainsburys this morning as forgot to make lunch for work.

It was horrible! Really strong chemical taste to it, glad it’s being changed back to regular, couldn’t even finish it.

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Yes, agreed, the EU version was vile, must have been concocted in one of Bayer’s labs in Germany.

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@5harpy thanks for the message. Did the bottle the bottle look like this:

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Or like this:

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Not all Sainsbury’s have the new stock yet. If it was the bottom, could you let me know which store? Sorry either way if you didn’t like it, hopefully it is the old RTD!

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Yeah it was the bottom one. Still have one in the fridge :face_vomiting:

It was Sainsburys, Inverkip, Scotland - they had quite a lot left

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Thanks, in a way I’m relieved. The RTD supply has changed to a new supplier and most people are saying it’s much better than the one you’ve just tried.

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Mine had both. About 30 bottles on the shelf yesterday with the new type at the back and EU type at the front. Nice way to quickly compare them. EU remains the same (I didn’t have any issue with it aside from one bottle) and the new type is lovely.