Fonterra and Greenpeace settle over misleading ’100% New Zealand grass-fed’ claims on Anchor butter

Greenpeace spokeswoman Sinéad Deighton-O'Flynn pictured outside Fonterra's Auckland headquarters in September 2024. Photo / Bryce Groves, Greenpeace

Fonterra has admitted it likely misled customers over the use of “100% New Zealand grass-fed” on its Anchor butter packaging.

Greenpeace Aotearoa filed a lawsuit against the dairy giant in September 2024 for allegedly breaching the Fair Trading Act, saying many of Fonterra’s farmers use imported palm kernel as a supplement.

The Anchor butter product was sold between December 2023 and April 2025.

Today, the two parties said they had reached an out-of-court settlement on the matter.

An agreed statement said: “Fonterra accepts that the use in the label of the two phrases ‘100% New Zealand’ and ‘grass-fed’ in combination with each other was likely to mislead some New Zealand consumers, particularly those unaware of the nature of the feeds that are provided to dairy cows, and was in breach of s9 of the Fair Trading Act 1986.

“The claim did not put in issue the question of whether or not the phrase ‘grass-fed’ on its own was misleading, and Fonterra makes no admission that the words ‘grass-fed’ in isolation are likely to mislead.”

Fonterra said its definition of grass was consistent with the grass-fed feed types in the New Zealand Dairy Grass Fed Administrative Standard.

It said farmers’ cows are 96% grass-fed, with “grass” defined as including grass, grass silage, hay and forage crops (including brassicas and legumes).

Greenpeace spokeswoman Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn said it was an “open-and-shut case of greenwashing”.

“Fonterra claimed that its Anchor Butter was ‘100% New Zealand grass-fed’, but that isn’t true. Fonterra dairy cows can be fed up to three kilograms of palm kernel a day – an imported feed linked to rainforest destruction.

“Palm kernel is a dry, gravelly cow feed that comes from the destroyed paradise rainforests of Southeast Asia. It isn’t grass, and to claim otherwise is misleading and deceptive.”