By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agriculture editor
A consumer would have to drink 177 litres of Thexton's juice a day to gain the health benefits that Rio Beverages claimed for the product.
The finding arose from analysis of the company's products during a Commerce Commission investigation.
Yesterday, in the Auckland District Court, Rio Beverages was
fined $22,600 and ordered to pay court costs after being found guilty of five breaches of the Fair Trading Act relating to false and misleading claims about its Thexton's Quality Beverages range of products.
Judge John Hole said there was debate as to which substances were accepted as providing therapeutic benefit, but in any event the amount of echinacea in the juice would need to be substantial.
"This was a classic case of the public and rival traders being grossly misled by inaccurate labelling," he said.
Rio Beverages, which has bottling plants in Auckland and Christchurch, was sold last month to Australia-based Coca-Cola Amatil and US giant The Coca-Cola Company for $40 million.
The commission's investigation found Rio's marketing of its Thexton-branded cranberry, orange, pink grapefruit and red grape products emphasised their health benefits.
The labels highlighted echinacea and its ability to help ward off winter colds and flu.
Four charges related to echinacea content, and the fifth concerned labelling of the Thexton's blackcurrant beverage, which claimed that it "contains 10 per cent blackcurrant juice".
The maximum level of blackcurrant juice content was found to be around 4 per cent, a figure corroborated by Rio's production manager, who said the beverage was made with 5 per cent blackcurrant juice.
The commission's director of Fair Trading, Deborah Battell, said more and more drinks manufacturers were adding substances such as echinacea, calcium, guarana and vitamins to their products, claiming health-related benefits.
Consumers needed to be wary.
"In some cases these drinks are packaged to look like fruit drinks but in fact contain very low percentages of fruit juice or the added substances."
