Queensland Yoghurt pays price for misleading ingredient
Queensland Yoghurt has paid a penalty of $12,600 after the ACCC issued it with an infringement notice for allegedly misleading consumers by omitting gelatine as an ingredient in some of its yoghurt products.
The ACCC alleges that, from at least 2 July 2019, Queensland Yoghurt failed to disclose the presence of gelatine, or the compound ingredient CFT-1 of which gelatine was a component, in its Queensland Yoghurt products, when in fact gelatine was an ingredient.
“Consumers rely on accurate labels to make informed purchasing decisions,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said.
The ACCC had reasonable grounds to believe that by omitting gelatine (or CFT-1) from its ingredient list, Queensland Yoghurt’s statement of ingredients was false or misleading, in contravention of the Australian Consumer Law.
“Failure to disclose gelatine means consumers may have purchased its yoghurt products believing they did not contain gelatine,” Ms Court said.
“This may be of particular concern to consumers who have chosen not to consume gelatine for dietary, religious, environmental or ethical reasons.”
The ACCC was also concerned that Queensland Yoghurt was not competing fairly in a market where products are differentiated by their ingredients, by being able to offer an apparently more attractive product which was represented to be free from gelatine.
“Misleading representations relating to food are a 2020 enforcement priority area for the ACCC, and we will continue to take enforcement action where necessary,” Ms Court said.
Queensland Yoghurt has committed to amend its products’ statement of ingredients by the end of May.
Do you think the penalty fits the crime in this case?
Words fail me !
.... what is the point of food companies putting an ingredient list on their products if it is nt correct ?
....they should bre fined a lot more for this sort of deception.