Episode 13 Watchdog Test House

Take a look around your home.

Can you be sure that every appliance is safe?

Is everything a company tells you about a product true?

And are you getting the best value for your money?

With the help of the country's top experts,

we're going to see what it takes to test the household products

we use every day.

We'll discover how they're pushed to their limits.

We'll put the makers' claims on trial.

And show you how to make your money go further.

You'll find these products in any ordinary house.

But this is no ordinary house

and no ordinary street.

This is the...

Hello, we're deep inside one of Britain's leading science centres.

Here at the Building Research Establishment,

some of the products and materials that we use every day

are put to the test, to make sure that they're safe,

environmentally-friendly and that they don't fall apart.

Coming up on today's programme...

Mobile phones, they all need charging.

There was white smoke and a strong smell coming from the area

where the charger had been plugged in.

The latest crackdown on illegal chargers coming onto the market.

I'm going to issue you something called a suspension notice for them,

which means you're not allowed to sell

that particular style of charger any more.

Is it worth paying nearly £300 for a juicer?

Or will one for less than £25 perform just as well?

And from salmonella in eggs to the horse meat scandal,

will food testing ever go far enough

to ensure that we know exactly what's in our food?

More than two million people receive an electric shock

from an appliance every year

and thousands of them are seriously injured.

That's why making sure all electrical products on sale

are safe is a vital part of the job for Trading Standards.

We've been out with officers in Newcastle,

to see how they're tackling, head-on,

the problem of dodgy mobile phone chargers.

Mobile phones, we've all got one.

In fact, there are currently over 80 million of them

in use across the UK.

All of which need charging.

Chris Cliff went online to buy a charger for his Samsung phone.

It came, it looked genuine,

it had all the genuine Samsung details on it.

And I plugged it downstairs in the living room.

But within ten minutes,

all the electricity had switched off in the house.

A fault with the charger

had caused the safety switch on his fuse box to trip.

There was white smoke and a strong smell coming

from the area where the charger had been plugged in.

You could see the burn marks round the adaptor,

so I opened it up and you could see where it had all melted inside.

The charger may have looked genuine,

but Samsung later confirmed it was, in fact, a fake.

Luckily, Chris had got to the charger quickly

and unplugged it before it could cause any serious damage

to his home or his family.

But cheap and counterfeit chargers have been known to start fires

and, even, electrocute people.

It, sort of, took me back a little bit to think, potentially,

what could have happened and how dangerous it could have been.

For Trading Standards, removing products like this from the market

is a top priority.

They seized more than 10,000 mobile phone accessories last year.

Mobile phone chargers have been an issue for a long time now

and there seems to be an increase.

We seem to have a spate of sub-standard chargers

floating around the market at the moment.

Today, Paul is carrying out spot checks on a number of traders

thought to be selling suspect chargers in the Newcastle area.

Paul goes into the shop, undercover, to buy the goods.

Just an iPhone 5 charger, please.

Nice one, thank you very much. Cheers. See you later.

He also buys a second charger from a different shop

and already has concerns.

Both of them fairly non-descript, but there are some key markings

that are missing off this one, in particular.

There is a requirement for plugs to have certain markings on them

and if the markings aren't there,

you can guarantee that the way they've manufactured them

on the inside is probably going to have some bits missing, as well.

So the chargers are taken to the lab for testing

and we'll be bringing you the results later.

If they're found to be unsafe,

it'll be up to Paul to get them removed from the market.

A nice glass of freshly-squeezed apple juice.

If you buy one of these in a cafe or restaurant,

it'll set you back a few pounds,

which is why you may have thought about investing

in one of these - a juicer.

Now, you can spend less than £25 or you can buy one for almost £300.

So, how do they compare?

Guess what, Sophie? We're going to find out the answer to that question

by putting some of these juicers to the test.

The cheapest we could find - the Cookworks KP400 Juicer for £24.99.

Yes, that's just £24.99.

A mid-range product - the Philips Viva Collection HR1863 Juicer

at £99.99.

And, at the top end of the market,

the Sage by Heston Blumenthal Nutri Juicer Pro, clocking in at £299.95.

First up, we're going to test them for taste and texture.

Well, when I say "we", I mean, them -

some yoga volunteers, in tune with a healthy lifestyle.

We've made three glasses of apple juice

and three glasses of carrot juice, using our three products,

according to the manufacturers' instructions.

When it comes to taste and texture,

which apple juice will our nine volunteers like the best?

For flavour, I think, A.

I think C has the best texture and B is the best taste.

I definitely pick A. Easy to drink and it's not stressful.

I hate a stressful juice.

The Sage Heston Blumenthal juicer, our most expensive product,

was the clear winner, with seven of our nine volunteers voting it

the best for both flavour and texture.

The juice tasted sweeter.

There was a lot less bits in there.

It was just easier to drink.

But in second place for flavour was the Cookworks juicer,

our cheapest product,

with the mid-range Philips coming last.

And it was a similar result for the carrots.

I don't know. I think they're, kind of, equal.

But A is definitely the favourite.

I think I like B better.

I like the flavour of A best.

Once again, the most expensive Sage machine came top,

with six out of nine voting it the best for flavour

and seven out of nine the best texture.

And it's another second-place finish for our cheapest product,

the Cookworks juicer, with three volunteers

voting it the best for flavour and two for texture.

Philips, once again, came last.

So, overall, Sage was the clear winner in this one-off test.

Oh, I knew I had expensive taste.

£300 is quite a lot, but it did a very good job.

But at a fifth of the price of the Philips

and under a tenth of the price of the Sage,

it's not a bad result for the Cookworks juicer in second place.

No way. Unbelievable.

£30 versus £300 is quite a big difference.

Well, I guess, you know, price doesn't define the quality.

So our yoga class has spoken about taste and consistency.

But, as this is just a snapshot,

we're heading to the lab, to test the machines in three categories...

..to see which one of our products

produces the most juice per kilogram of fruit or veg,

which one works the quickest

and which is easiest to clean and put away.

Find out the answers to these questions later on in the programme.

Now, last year, it was horse meat in our burgers.

In the '90s, it was BSE in beef.

And, before that, it was salmonella in eggs.

We've had our fair share of food scandals over the years

and you may wonder when will we ever be sure

about exactly what's in our food? Here's Lynn Faulds Wood.

-'Welcome to Watchdog.'

-On tonight's programme.

'All these people have written to us.'

'Now time to say hello again to these delightful little creatures.

'Hard to imagine, isn't it, that they could cause us any harm?

'But one day, they could. For, amongst poultry like this,

'there's now a disease which is reaching epidemic proportions.'

The year was 1988 and my husband John was talking about salmonella -

a bacterium found in eggs that can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Health Minister Edwina Currie had just announced

most of the eggs produced in this country were affected.

The egg industry was in turmoil.

Four million hens and 400 million eggs were destroyed.

But it wasn't the last food scare that we'd see on Watchdog.

And it certainly wasn't the first scare we'd seen in this country.

In the mid-19th century, people were pouring into the cities.

They lived in small rooms, with few cooking facilities,

and relied on pre-packaged food and an army of street vendors.

With fierce competition and no controls on quality,

unscrupulous traders tried to boost profits by bulking out food

with things nobody should be eating.

Lead was added to cheese, wine and cider.

Bread was made whiter and heavier by adding plaster of Paris,

chalk or alum - a compound used in detergents.

Although alum was not poisonous in and of itself,

it's widely believed that it made digestion less effective

and so, people weren't getting the nutrients and, obviously,

that's particularly injurious to children.

A lot of colourings, in particular,

were made from metal salts and they were actually poisonous.

Scary. But chemical research and legislation was evolving

and, eventually, in 1875, came the Sale of Food and Drugs Act.

For the first time, local authorities were required

to appoint food inspectors called public analysts.

They could go into grocers, take samples to analyse,

go back to their laboratories and look at them.

They'd do this through looking at it in a microscope,

through chemical tests. So that meant that traders

were threatened with the prospect of random sampling

and the prospect of prosecution

if their goods were found to be not as described.

The Act would form the basis of food law for the next 70 years.

At the turn of the century, brands began to dominate the grocery market.

And, to protect these brands,

companies did their own extensive testing.

Meanwhile, legislation developed bit by bit,

until, in 1955, the Food and Drugs Act brought all the rules

about composition, labelling and the sale of food together.

Food markets were evolving,

food was becoming, gradually, a little more complex.

Technology was advancing, both in terms of food

and in terms of analysis, so legislation is always

behind technology, so, every now and again, there had to be a really

big catch-up, just to consolidate everything and make it relevant.

In the '70s, frozen foods started to appear on the supermarket shelves

and, in 1979, Marks & Spencer was pioneering the chilled ready meal.

By the 1980s,

other retailers were adopting the standards they'd developed.

In just over 100 years, we'd made giant strides

in food technology and safety.

But any complacency we might have been feeling about

the safety of our food was soon to be shattered.

The farming industry was about to face decades of problems

and it all started with these.

'Some experts are now seriously questioning

'whether we should eat eggs at all.'

It took ten years before the industry really got its act together.

In 1998, the British Lion mark had arrived

showing hens had been vaccinated against salmonella.

This dramatically reduced the number of cases in the UK.

But there was a worse crisis to come.

'Next, mad cow disease - BSE.'

'Every week, up to 300 suspected new cases in British cattle.

'The question, is it crossing from cattle to humans

and causing the notorious Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease,

known as CJD, which destroys the brain?

The short answer was yes.

But it was a year before the government admitted the link.

The EU banned British beef exports and millions of cows were destroyed.

BSE spread because farmers had been giving cows feed containing

ground-up animal parts.

It was a crisis too many and the government took action.

There was a perception, during the BSE crisis,

that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food

couldn't represent the interests of British agriculture,

British farmers and the consumer.

So, in 2001, the Food Standards Agency was set up.

The Food Standards Agency - its sole purpose

is to protect consumers' interests in relation to food.

But if the hope was the FSA would end all problems,

there was no such luck.

Hello, good afternoon.

The Environment Minister says he is absolutely determined

to get answers about food testing in the UK

at a summit examining the horse meat scandal.

In January 2013, stores across the country had to remove products

labelled "beef", after tests revealed they contained horse meat.

I think there's been a realisation across the whole EU

that the focus has been on food safety issues,

which, obviously, are clearly very important,

but at the expense of other things to do with the standard of food -

its authenticity, whether it is fraudulent or not.

Distasteful as many found the horse meat affair,

nobody's health was put at risk.

What it showed was how difficult it can be to monitor food

that's been processed through several countries.

Today, manufacturers up and down the country have improved their processes

and many now do now test our food for horse meat.

But is it only a matter of time before Watchdog's investigating

the next scare? Let's hope not.

Now, teeth. How do you look after yours?

Do you use an electric toothbrush or the cheapest one you can find?

Do you floss or use mouthwash?

With hundreds of products on sale,

what should we be looking out for to make sure our teeth are sparkling?

Well, with me now

is Professor Walmsley, from the British Dental Association.

Now, you can spend a lot on a toothbrush,

you can spend virtually nothing,

these are some relatively cheap ones, but you could get one

for £200, if it was electric. Does it matter how much you spend?

It's not necessarily how much you spend,

it's how you use the toothbrushes.

Most people say two minutes as a time,

so you put a timer on for two minutes and you've got to go systematically.

Getting the back molar teeth is really important,

so working from the back to the front, parts next to your cheek,

parts next your palate and your tongue and the lips.

So, these ones, they're very cheap,

-they could do the same job as an electric one.

-They could.

They're a little bit on the large side. You want a small head,

so you can get into the back of the mouth

and brush those hard-to-reach places.

And you need the bristles to be about soft to medium.

And that's really what you need to be looking for in a toothbrush.

There is some evidence to show that, if people spend the money,

they are more motivated - and that's a good thing -

but it's always a good idea to get checked with your dentist

that you're brushing your teeth in a proper way.

What about the toothpaste that you choose to use with your brush?

Again, there are so many to choose from.

What is the important thing to go for?

It's really important to have a toothpaste that's got fluoride in.

Cos we just know that fluoride works and it helps to strengthen teeth,

so that's the most important thing to look for.

There are toothpastes that help to stop sensitive teeth,

there's whitening toothpastes, too,

but, if you're going to use any of those, check with your dentist first.

It's really important.

But there's also flossing, there's mouthwash, is that as important?

They have their place,

but you've still got to get the brushing done first.

-Professor Walmsley, thank you.

-Thank you.

Back now to juicers.

Earlier, we put three of them to the test.

When it comes to taste and texture,

the most expensive one came out on top

and the cheapest one beat the mid-range product into second place.

But the testing is not over yet.

It's certainly not, Sophie. It's time to get technical.

Dr Nazanin Zand has helped us devise some tough tests for our machines.

Today, we are going to conduct a comparison between three different

juicers which are currently available on the market.

These three juicers are - our cheapest product,

the Cookworks KP400 Juicer at £24.99,

a mid-range product, the Philips Viva Collection HR1863 Juicer,

costing £99.99,

and, at the top end of the market,

the Sage by Heston Blumenthal Nutri Juicer Pro,

which sets you back £299.95.

First, we'll be looking at how much liquid is produced from a kilogram

of apples and a kilogram of carrots.

The juicers will also be juicing against the clock,

to see which is quickest.

Turn on the juicer.

Let's start with the amount of juice produced from the apples.

We're measuring in weight, because it's the most accurate way

of calculating exactly how much juice has been produced.

And, as you can see, we have quite a lot of foam on the top,

which carries no weight.

Taking first place was the most expensive product, the Sage,

which produces 722g of juice.

In second place, the mid-range product, the Philips,

with a very healthy 681g.

Some way back in third place was the cheapest juicer,

the Cookworks, weighing in at just 561g.

Now, on to the carrots.

I need to measure another kilogram now.

In first place was the Sage, with 570g.

But, when it came to carrots, our cheapest product,

the Cookworks, came second, producing 554g of juice.

The mid-range Philips was third, with 522g.

But add up the totals for both apples and carrots

and it's clear that, the more you spend, the more juice you get.

At least, in our test.

Overall, the Sage came top, our mid-range product, the Philips,

came second and our cheapest product, the Cookworks, came third.

But what if you're the type that relies on speed?

Combining the times for both apples and carrots,

the Sage once again took first place overall.

Clocking in at 51 seconds to blitz the apples

and 36 seconds for the carrots, giving it a total time of...

Our mid-range juicer, the Philips,

was actually the quickest to make apple juice.

However, its slower carrot juice time gave it a total of...

Just three seconds slower, overall, than the Sage.

But, in this test, our cheapest product, the Cookworks, struggled.

I just needed to cut this in half.

We had to cut up both the apples and carrots and clear the basket

that catches the shredded pulp, making for a total time of...

Over four minutes behind the total times of our other two products.

But will we see a change in results

when it comes to the clean-up operation?

Dr Zand's PHD student Emma is here to help.

This is now convenience testing, which means Emma dismantling it,

washing it, drying it and assembling it back together

while I'm timing her.

After much scrubbing at the sink, the Sage was victorious yet again,

when combining the times for cleaning away both

the apple juice and carrot juice, clocking in at...

Our mid-range product, the Philips,

was a close second, with a total time of...

Once more, the Cookworks ended up in third place,

with a combined time of...

Argos told us the Cookworks KP400 juicer

represents excellent value for money, with customers rating it

an average of four out of five stars in online reviews.

They say they offer a wide range of juicers, to suit all budgets,

and have a rigorous quality control process in place.

Philips, whose product has a two-year warranty, has told us

they were pleased to see how well their juicer performed

against a much more expensive model,

especially in how quickly it makes the juice.

They add they have many positive customer reviews from their juicers.

And BRG Appliances LTD told us

that the Sage By Heston Blumenthal Nutri Juicer Pro

was designed with long-term durability in mind

and subject to rigorous life cycle testing.

It comes with a five-year warranty.

They add they also have a cheaper product on the market,

which they would expect to perform very well in our test.

Overall, our most expensive product, the Sage juicer,

was the clear winner.

And although the mid-range Phillips did perform well

in our technical challenge, it was beaten by our cheapest product,

the Cookworks, in our one-off taste test.

So, although this is just a snapshot, perhaps it IS possible

to get a healthy hit of juice at a bargain price.

Back to the crackdown on the sale of illegal mobile phone chargers

in Newcastle.

Earlier, we saw Trading Standards officers seize two products

suspected of being unsafe.

It's now over to the lab to find out exactly how dangerous they are.

All electrical products have to display the CE mark.

This indicates that the manufacturer has verified that it complies

with all relevant safety requirements.

One of the chargers is already causing Dave concern.

It should have the CE mark on it and it hasn't, which, straightaway,

suggests that it hasn't been tested, doesn't meet European standards.

There's only one way to find out for sure and that to test it.

First, Dave is going to check whether the charger is safely

converting the 230 volts that comes out of a UK socket into the five

needed to charge a mobile phone, otherwise it could be dangerous.

Got my test meter, probe's in place, switch it on.

And we get just over five volts, which is perfect,

which is what we need to charge a mobile phone.

Both pass this test,

but they also need to be able to handle excess voltage,

in case there's a sudden surge in the electrical supply.

OK, so what we've got now is a small test circuit, which allows us

to apply a test voltage to the two input pins of the charger.

Dave's cranking the voltage up to 3,000 volts,

that's more than ten times the normal supply.

If insulation inside the charger is working correctly,

it should remain operational.

In this case, that failed at 1,700, so that's a failure.

Next, the second charger.

That didn't even get near to 3,000.

It got to 1,500 volts, which means the insulation between the input

circuit and the output circuit isn't strong enough, so that's a failure.

The final test is to inspect the wiring on the inside.

One of the common faults with a lot of chargers, there's cables

attached at the rear and those cables are soldered. When you use

solder, should be a secondary means of security.

Something as simple as some glue should do it,

just in case the solder becomes loose over time,

but there's no such thing inside this charger.

If either one of those cables becomes detached, there's a fair chance

the 230 volts we have going in could come out of the output connector

and go straight to your mobile phone

or possibly, an electric shock to the user.

Both chargers fail this test, too.

With Dave's confirmation that these chargers are potentially dangerous,

it's up to Paul to make sure they are removed from sale immediately.

Paul heads to the first shop to issue suspension notice number one.

I'm from Trading Standards. I was in earlier today?

I bought an iPhone charger from yourselves. The wires that

are connected to the pins are barely connected and they're not safe.

So what's going to happen is I'm going to issue something

called a suspension notice for them,

which means you're not allowed to sell that particular style

of charger any more and you're going to tell me where you got them from.

Okey-dokey?

-We normally buy stuff from Manchester, right?

-Yeah.

Have you got any receipts or anything like that?

The shopkeeper attempts to look for receipts,

but eventually tells Paul he's unable to find any paperwork

and he claims he doesn't even know the name of his supplier.

There's a guy who comes all the time in his car.

He just write the receipt on the normal paper, so...

-He will definitely come next week, as well.

-Right, OK.

Do you know this gentleman's name or number?

Not really.

Paul leaves once the shop owner has agreed to try and identify

his supplier.

Next, the shop that sold Paul the charger

that didn't even display the CE mark.

Again, the shopkeeper seems uncertain of who he's bought

the chargers from and doesn't have any paperwork.

He claims they were just samples.

We don't sell this, we have proper ones, which one we sell it.

Right, OK, well, the problem is that I was sold this this morning

and if you're saying that it was just a sample,

you shouldn't be selling samples.

They're far from good, they're unsafe,

so you're not allowed to sell those any more, OK?

No problem. I know now, so it's OK.

Paul issues the suspension notice and leaves after the shopkeeper

agrees he won't buy anything from that supplier again.

We were told a similar story,

that he's bought it from a guy who's come in off the street.

It's a bit of a concern because it's not really verifiable and we're

trying to find out exactly where these bad chargers have come from.

It's a different brand, as well,

so I think we've got a bit of a serious issue here.

Both shops were eventually able to provide Paul

with the supplier's details. This information was passed over

to the relevant Trading Standards authority,

so they could take further action.

The shops say they are now purchasing their products

from a more reputable supplier.

If you want more information on the safety of products in your home,

you can go to our website...

That's all for today. Thanks for watching.