Sugar rush: blood bank acts to stem flow of free iced biscuits

Dutch blood bank Sanquin has had to lock away the iced biscuits it hands out to donors after discovering it was haemorrhaging money through the heartwarming gesture.

A volunteer at the donation point in Delft told Omroep West the organisation had taken the drastic step because some visitors were abusing its generosity. “People were going out of here with their bags full,” they said.

Sanquin’s Instagram page promotes the pink-topped biscuits as a “well-earned tradition” to thank blood donors and restore their blood sugar levels.

But according to volunteers, the gesture is costing it around €1,000 a month in Delft alone, forcing it to put the biscuits behind the counter.

Instead there are now laminated menus in the café telling people they can ask for a biscuit after they have given blood.

Not all Sanquin donation points have withdrawn the biscuits. NOS found they were still on display in Utrecht and at a football club in Utrecht.

A spokesman for Sanquin’s head office said it was up to individual branches to decide, but confirmed that at some locations there were problems with “people taking more than we would reasonably expect.”

A volunteer in The Hague said: “We see people taking more than they should, but if they say they’re taking them home, should we be forbidding that?”