Asda has announced it will ban the sale of a vape product after it was found to have illegal levels of nicotine in them.
It follows the moves made by fellow big four supermarket chains Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons earlier this week.
A recent investigation found the watermelon-flavoured Elf Bar 600 product had at least 50% over the legal limit for nicotine e-liquid.
When this discovery was made public, the major supermarket chains that stocked the e-cigarette announced that they had temporarily removed them from sale whilst an investigation took place.
The UK's biggest supermarket chain Tesco announced the ban first saying it had “temporarily removed” the product from sale in its stores as a “precautionary measure” while the manufacturer urgently looked into the claims.
Sainsbury's also followed suit issuing a statement that it too had "temporarily removed" the vape product.
Morrisons then said it was to remove the sale of all the Elf Bar 600 vapes products as part of its ongoing investigation adding that the products would only be returned to sale once stock that "fully complies with UK legislation becomes available."
Asda initially said it was only working with the Elfbar 600 supplier however it has now joined the others in banning the sale of the vape.
An Asda spokesman said: "We can confirm that Asda is removing Elf Bar 600 flavours from sale, while we await the findings of the relevant investigations."
The book and stationery store WHSmith has also removed all variants of Elf Bar vape product from sale.
According to UK law, the amount of nicotine liquid in a vape is legally limited to 2ml with a maximum nicotine strength of 2%.
However, the test conducted by the Daily Mail on three flavours of Elf Vap 600 products found they had 3ml and 3.2ml of nicotine levels.
An Elf Bar spokesperson told the Daily Mail that some batches had been "inadvertently" overfilled in the UK and apologised for the inconvenience.
The Chinese company however insisted the "highly regrettable situation" did not compromise the product's safety.
Even though it only launched in 2021, Elf Bar is among the most popular vape brands in the world and sells around 2.5million of its 600 products in the UK every week.
Shops that have banned the sale of Elf Bar vapes
- Tesco
- Morrisons
- Sainsbury's
- Asda
- WHSmith
