Commission continues action on food promotions: New World corrective ads, "beef sausages" were mutton
Published28 Aug 2000
Commerce Commission action against allegedly false claims about food continued today, with Thorndon Supermarket Limited, which trades as Thorndon New World, publishing corrective advertising what it had called "beef" sausages were made from mutton.
"Food promotion is a highly competitive billion-dollar-a-year industry," Commission Chair John Belgrave said. "What's more, it has a captive market everyone has to eat.
"Food is a big part of all consumers' spending, and always will be. Consumers must be able to rely on labels and representations made about food they cannot usually test the food themselves nor get scientific tests done before buying.
"For these reasons, we will continue to focus our attention on food promotions."
The Commission enforces the Fair Trading Act, which prohibits false claims that goods have a particular composition. From April 24 to May 15 this year, what Thorndon New World had described as "beef sausages" contained mutton, cereal and other ingredients, but no beef.
In this case, the Commission has decided to end its investigation with a settlement. As part of the settlement, Thorndon New World has given signed undertakings including that:
"the labelling of this product during the period as 'beef sausages' was false and liable to mislead"
it will publish corrective advertising in Wellington community newspapers
it will have an external agency audit its compliance programme and will report back to the Commission
the Commission may publicise the settlement, and
if the settlement is not honoured the Commission could take court action.
Background
The Fair Trading Act prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct, and false or misleading claims.
The Act does not set rules for when nutritional or other information must be on food labels. Rather, it requires that any information provided is not false or misleading.
The Food Regulations, which are administered by the Ministry of Health, set out rules for when particular information must be provided about food.
