Question: I was shocked to read in the “ingredients” list for a fruit-flavoured yoghurt powder that it contained no actual fruit, or even real fruit extract, despite the lovely fruit pictures on the front of the packages. How legal is this and how much other food packaging is blatantly wrong?
Answer: Whether a yoghurt contains real fruit or simply fruit flavouring is a valid question because, as a consumer, you have every right to expect food labels to display accurate information. The Hansells boysenberry yoghurt powder mix you bought has the product name “boysenberry yoghurt” in large letters on the front label above a picture of boysenberries when it does not contain any real boysenberries. A number of other food manufacturers use a similar approach in their labelling.
The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code sets out legal requirements for labelling, composition, safety, handling and food production and processing in New Zealand and Australia. Standard 1.2.2 provides specific information requirements for food labels. Among these, the product name or description should be “sufficient to indicate the true nature of the food”.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand produces posters that provide further details on food labels, and these posters include the example of a fruit yoghurt, noting, for instance, that “If the yoghurt contained strawberry flavouring rather than real fruit, then the name would need to indicate that it is strawberry-flavoured yoghurt.”
Another FSANZ poster elaborates on the same fruit yoghurt example: “Fair trading laws and food laws in Australia and New Zealand require that labels do not misinform through false, misleading or deceptive representations. For example, a food with a picture of strawberries on the label must contain strawberries.”
Given that the Hansells yoghurt mix product has the name “boysenberry yoghurt” in large letters above a picture of boysenberries, consumers may assume it contains boysenberries when it does not.
Instead, in small print at the bottom of the package, it notes the product is a “fruit-flavoured” yoghurt. So, does this breach the code by misleading consumers about the nature of the product?
New Zealand Food Safety is responsible for ensuring that food is safe and suitable for consumers – which includes accurate labelling. Regarding the Hansells yoghurt mix, NZ Food Safety’s deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said it “meets the requirements of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code in that it identifies the food as fruit-flavoured yoghurt. It does this twice on the front of the packet, below the net weight and where it describes the content as making 1kg of fresh fruit-flavoured yoghurt.”
However, Arbuckle adds that “a product can meet the requirements of the code but still be considered misleading under the Fair Trading Act, administered by the Commerce Commission.”
The commission said it could not comment specifically on this food product (without thoroughly investigating).
“It is important for businesses to consider the overall impression consumers may reasonably take from the representations on packaging. If consumers’ overall impression from the product packaging is that the product contains boysenberries and it does not in fact contain any boysenberries, then the packaging may give a false or misleading impression and possibly breach the Fair Trading Act.”
In particular, explains the commission, “businesses must not rely on fine print to correct an overall misleading impression. Any important qualifying information the business is relying on needs to be prominent and proximate to the main message.”
Hansells technical manager Malcolm MacDonald says it plans to update the labelling on its packet yoghurt mixes. “We intend to review the size of this wording to lessen the chance of confusion that the powder contains fruit as opposed to flavour derived from the fruit.”
If you think any business is making a misleading claim about its product or is breaching the Fair Trading Act, you can lay a complaint with the Commerce Commission.
