Dialogue with Wholesalers: No Recalls and Incompliant Stocks

On February 6, Daily Mail revealed the illegally excessive nicotine content of ELFBAR 600 (watermelon flavor) products. Subsequently, three British supermarket chains removed all related products, and Booker, an ELFBAR wholesaler recalled associated products. On February 10, ELFBAR held a discussion with The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They issued a statement of apology and guaranteed the recall of illegal products. MHRA's previous reply to 2FIRSTS also stated that ELFBAR had committed to recalling the relevant products from the market while they make adjustments to meet compliance requirements.

On February 15, a 2FIRSTS correspondent contacted 20 e-cigarette wholesalers in the UK and conducted interviews on this incident. Three wholesalers answered and said they had not received the recall notice for ELFBAR 600 products.

A wholesale specialist of an advanced e-liquid and e-cigarette wholesaler in London told 2FIRSTS, "It is quite common that the content of e-liquid exceeds the standard, it is not only ELFBAR's e-liquid that exceeds the standard. This is a tiny problem. The nicotine concentration of ELFBAR has not exceeded the standard; it is still 2%. It just has a little more e-liquid, which is very common. Meanwhile, this is also a good thing for wholesalers because it means consumers are buying more for the same price.". He further mentioned that their ELFBAR 600 product inventory is currently sufficient, and all of them are compliant products.

Previously, according to the content of ELFBAR's apology letter disclosed by the retail media Betterretailing, ELFBAR stated that it was working with all supply chain partners to replace all stocks to ensure 100% that no products in the UK contained 3ml pods. The new 2ml batches will arrive in the UK within 30 days.

When 2FIRSTS informed the wholesale specialist of the news, he replied, "Although the 'over-filling scandal' has not brought any impact on us at present, it is still good news. We expect this incident to force all products to cooperate with the regulation process."

In addition, two wholesalers, Deep Vaping UK, and Vape Distribution, both said they had not received any requests for recalls. However, the relevant person in charge of Vape Distribution stated that it is illegal to exceed the nicotine standard and hopes that all the goods received are compliant products.

In addition, on the ELFBAR UK official website (elfbar.co.uk), the homepage shows the ELFBAR600 product (the watermelon flavor) is still on sale. However, five supermarket chains have removed related products as of the publishing of this article. These five supermarket chains account for more than 50% market share of UK supermarkets.