Houston, we have a problem. We don’t know what we are eating.
More specifically, one major supermarket chain, Coles has a serial problem with truth in advertising.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has just fined Coles $61,200 for selling imported navel oranges and kiwi fruit in supermarkets in Queensland, NSW, Western Australia and the ACT while advertising them as Australian-grown. They were on sale beneath signs reading Helping Australia Grow and displaying the triangular Australian Grown symbol.
The ACCC also found the signage was being used in other stores that showed imported asparagus and almonds as being Australian-grown. You will recall Coles also being investigated for allegedly misleading conduct over its European produced Baked Today, Sold Today bread, the veritable epitome of a half-baked claim.
Coles’ explanation for the violation over navel oranges and kiwi fruit was that the signs were mistakenly left in place when old stock was moved out and the new stock put in its place. Yeah, right. This happened in five supermarkets. Don’t they have quality assurance systems in place? If these systems don’t work, then how can we trust anything they say?
Coles paid up but professed its innocence “as a matter of practical expediency to avoid a lengthy and costly legal action in defending our position”. That strikes me as an interesting way to protect your reputation.
The crime here is that consumers have been duped into believing they have been buying Australian-grown produce. From our point of view, that means those consumers have been trying to do the right thing by their country and their farmers – but they have been conned.
Truth in advertising has to be non-negotiable. People have to have faith in the retail system and truthful labelling is key to that. Instead they not only get duped at the supermarket, as in these instances, but they have to try to interpret the weasel words “made in”, “grown in”, “product of”. Really, what do they mean?
Consumers are not interested in where the majority of the processing may have taken place. They want to know the provenance of the bits they actually eat – where it was grown and what happened to it after being harvested.
Australians say they will buy Australian produce first, provided it meets the tests of price and quality. This latest example of duping, even though it might be inadvertent, destroys faith in the entire labeling system. It also brings into question the systems that the supermarkets employ to guarantee that what we think we are buying is legitimate.
Australian farmers are increasingly up against low cost imports. They have to cut their costs to remain in business, because they can’t increase their prices. It is not fair to tilt that much-touted (and imaginary) ‘level playing field’ even further by flouting the rules and allowing foreign foodstuffs to be sold as Australian.
Self regulation in our supermarkets clearly doesn’t work. It is time for a mandated code of conduct, as is currently being pursued by NFF. There is no bigger business in Australia. It has to be transparent, and they have to do better.
