Dairy Farmers settles case involving falsely labelled cheese products
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has obtained orders by consent in the Federal Court in Melbourne against Australian Co-operative Foods Limited (ACF) in relation to engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct and making false representations on the packaging of certain cheese products.
Between 6 February 2008 and 19 March 2008 ACF, which trades as Dairy Farmers, sold Romano style cheese that it packaged and labelled as Parmesan style cheese – the affected brands were Mil Lel and Westacre. The ACCC alleged that this conduct falsely represented the type of cheese and its nutritional attributes.
In addition to declaring that ACF’s conduct contravened sections 52, 53(a) and 55 of the Trade Practices Act 1974, the court also made orders which:
* restrain ACF from engaging in similar conduct for a period of three years
* ensure ACF publish on its website and send to business customers to whom it supplied the falsely labelled cheese a notice advising of the substitution and the false and misleading representations
* require ACF to implement and maintain a trade practices compliance program, and
* require ACF pay the ACCC’s costs of the proceeding.
ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, while acknowledging ACF’s cooperation in settling the matter, said that the incident was unfortunate. “ACF made a deliberate decision to falsely label the cheese to reduce an excess stockpile of Romano style cheese,” he said. “It is unfortunate that a company would engage in such conduct by marketing the falsely labelled product with statements such as ‘authentic’ and a ‘true Parmesan cheese’.”
“Where a company produces and markets distinct products it is simply not appropriate to substitute one for the other without clearly advising potential purchasers and amending other relevant representations on packaging,” he warned. “In this instance consumers who purchased both brands of the falsely labelled cheese got a product with a higher fat and lower calcium content than that stated on the packaging. Consumers who bought the falsely labelled Westacre brand also got a product with a higher sodium content than that stated on its packaging.”
I have only today, 31st of October stumbled across the article which states that the company ‘Dairy Farmers’ had been using Romano cheese, in place of parmesan during February and March of 2008. As a regular purchaser of this product, I was absolutely astounded, possibly because this was the first I had even heard about it. I rang the number on the bottom of the disclosure statement they had been ordered to put on their website by the court. Surprisingly he was on leave, but a message directed you to call someone else. Alicia was unsure of what I was referring to, but when she remembered, she told me that happened ages ago, why are you calling. I explained I was a consumer, she then told me I had been put through to the wrong area, and that I should call 028732 1000, and ask for consumer services. I thanked her and rang the number. I asked consumer services what had been done about the issue, I really wanted to know if consumers had been made aware of the companies deceit, had anything been noted at the grocery stores in particular where the products are purchased. I felt as a consumer, that maybe we should have been reimbursed for all purchases of the product. I know proving this would be a difficult task, but I believe as a consumer we were possibly forgotten. I note that the court order only requested that the businesses who purchased the products for on selling, were sent written advice of the incident, but why were they not asked to let the consumer know , it could hav been as simple as placing a ticket (like the specials ones) on the product to notify consumers of the incident. What if this had occurred with a product containing nuts, and someone had had an allergic reaction, it would have made front page news.
The ACCC expressed the opinion that this was an unfortunate incident, it was only unfortunate because DFarmers got caught, they deliberately did this in order to reduce a stockpile, how many people were aware of the fact, what did they do hold a board meeting and say…”well we need to move this cheese or it will go out of date and we’ll lose money, so lets package it as parmesan, we’re a bit short there, and flog it off like that, hey presto, problem solved”. It just is not fair, I feel I should no longer purchase any of the products from Dairy Farmers, or any of the companies they have purchased such coon, shape, moove, MilLel etc. How would companies such as Kraft benefit from such news? I will be sending emails to all my friends and family. Dairy Farmers you were wrong, and you should not be representing the hard working Dairy Producers of the country. Make it right.