Supermarkets accused of ‘copycat’ packaging on private labels
Australia’s leading supermarket chains have been accused of using “copycat” packaging of leading Australian food brands to mislead consumers into buying the supermarket’s own private label products.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council’s Chief Executive, Kate Carnell, said today that supermarkets are targeting brands with a strong market share and copying their designs as closely as possible without infringing trademark laws.
Private label products are forecast to grow strongly and could more than 40 per cent of total supermarket sales in Australia by 2020, according to a landmark report 2020: Industry at a Crossroads report recently released by AFGC and A.T. Kearney.
The AFGC’s Ms Carnell said that the growth in private labels is making it more difficult for Australian manufacturers to get their food products onto supermarkets shelves.
“In the end, this means consumers will have less choice,” Ms Carnell said. “This copycat strategy could be seen to be confusing consumers into believing they are buying top-selling branded products. Although the products may look similar, the taste and quality can be quite different between branded and private label products.”
AFGC’ call for a Supermarket Ombudsman
The AFGC has repeatedly called for the introduction of a Supermarket Ombudsman, to oversee a Fair Trading Code of Conduct.
Ms Carnell said that within the Code, there should be a requirement for supermarkets not to directly copy packaging to avoid confusion for customers.
“Consumers want to be confident about buying affordable, nutritious food and grocery brands that they know and trust,” she said.
Passing office to dupe consumers is growing in a competitive market place. It is not just the private labels, “copying” local business labels is a favoruite for imports that come in which are designed to confuse consumers. One of our AUSBUY members sent samples to Malaysia for export only to find their products and packaging copied and sent back here. What the Malays did not know was the quality and integrity of the product could not be copied.
A foreign owned retailer has copied packs of another AUSBUY member to infer the product was made by them – it was not. Again the quality and intergity of the local supplier stood out but again with much pain to the local business.
The problem is our gate keepers charged with stopping uncompetitive activity should stop these products before they get to the retail shelves. The USA is very good at doing this and keeping imports out. It is not a level playing field and our local manufacturers and our farmers are not being supported. Wake up time!!! These are our businesses, our land and our jobs.
The way we’re going, there will be an Ombudsman for each and every industry. Not a bad thing though. I was able to reach good negotiations through an Ombudsman with my telco
Big surprise.
This has been going on for a couple of years, already, with Coles almost dead-ringer copies of “Macro” packaging for Muesli etc.The “Big 2” will stop at nothing and have no ethics what-so-ever.
Simple fix. Own label products must be in plain packaging. White with red printing for Coles, White with Green printing for Woolies etc, no pics or graphics- COLES OWN WOOLIES OWN that is it and , of course, they must state the country of origin, BUT, in LARGE PRINT for us over 60 ers. An ombudsman is essential now but let’s give him/her the teeth to bring these two, especially, to heel! We’ve had enough and we want to choose what we put inside our bodies! Coles supermarkets look more and more like K-Mart everyday. They will merge them soon to cut costs-watch this space!