Sliced Bread

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Sliced Bread Presents: UV Sterilisers

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UV Sterilisers

BBC Radio 4 - Sliced Bread, UV Sterilisers

Do UV sterilisers really clean your belongings by shining a light over them?

Greg Foot investigates whether home 'UV sterilising products' like wands, lamps, boxes and baby bottle sterilisers really are the best thing since sliced bread - or marketing BS.

During the pandemic, as people sought to protect themselves from Corona Virus, more and more products entered the market claiming to use Ultra Violet light to clean your belongings. These vary from UV wands and lamps, to phone boxes and UV baby bottle sterilisers. 
You may have seen them advertised online, claiming to kill 99% of viruses and bacteria.
But do they deliver, and are they worth it, compared to more traditional methods of cleaning like alcohol wipes, or soap and water...
That's what listeners Chris and Ben wanted to know.

I'll be finding out by speaking to an expert in radiation safety Professor John O'Hagan at Loughborough University and Matt Knight, Product Testing Expert at the consumer group Which?

Once again this series we’re testing and investigating your suggested wonder-products, so if you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad, and wonder if there’s any evidence to back up a claim, drop us an email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a voice note to our WhatsApp number: 07543 306807

PRESENTER: Greg Foot

PRODUCER: Jay Unger

Sliced Bread Presents

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast.

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast. Sean Farrington examines the spectacular failures of wonder products and businesses which had promised so much.

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up... Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers.    

In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist, Sean Farrington, examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt?  

Some of the world's most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world's most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? 

Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? 

The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand's fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions.  

From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. 

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in February. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.

Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

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