{"id":119357,"date":"2015-09-04T20:33:21","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T10:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=119357"},"modified":"2020-11-17T14:30:48","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T04:30:48","slug":"accc-cracks-down-on-porkies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/09\/04\/accc-cracks-down-on-porkies\/","title":{"rendered":"ACCC Cracks Down On ‘Porkies’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
ACCC Chairman Rod Sims
(Photo: ACCC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

September 4, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has investigated alleged misleading conduct in the pork industry arising from claims such as “free range”, “bred free range” and “bred outdoors”.<\/p>\n

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said on Thursday that individual producers and the peak representative industry body, Australian Pork Limited, have co-operated to address the ACCC\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important that the description on product packaging and in promotional material accurately reflects the living conditions of the animals raised for the production of meat products,” Mr Sims said.<\/p>\n

“Marketing material must use words that consumers can understand, irrespective of whether the words have some special industry meaning.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ACCC has accepted court enforceable undertakings from P&M Quality Smallgoods Pty Ltd (trading as Primo Smallgoods), George Weston Foods Pty Ltd (trading as KR Castlemaine) and Pastoral Pork Company Pty Ltd (trading as Otway Pork) as a result of the investigations.<\/p>\n

In each of these cases, the ACCC considered that the reference to either “free range” (used by Primo Smallgoods) or “bred free range” (used by Otway Pork and KR Castlemaine) in the promotion and labelling of the pork products was likely to give consumers the overall impression that the pigs were farmed according to free range methods, ie.\u00a0 at a minimum, the pigs were able to move about freely in an outdoor paddock on most ordinary days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Portions of some of the offending labels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was not the case.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the undertakings, the producers have acknowledged that the conduct may have contravened the Australian Consumer Law,” Mr Sims said.<\/p>\n

“In all cases, the producers have committed not to use the same descriptions unless their farming practices are such that, at a minimum, the pigs are able to move about freely in an outdoor paddock on most ordinary days. They have also agreed to implement consumer law compliance programs and publish corrective notices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, Australian Pork Limited has agreed to change the title and logo of one of its pork production standards from \u201cOutdoor Bred\u201d to \u201cOutdoor Bred. Raised Indoors On Straw\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ACCC considers that the inclusion of the words \u201craised indoors on straw\u201d makes it clearer to consumers that the pigs are born outdoors but raised indoors from weaning until slaughter.<\/p>\n

The ACCC understands that some traders have used the \u201cOutdoor Bred\u201d and \u201cBred Free Range\u201d statements to describe the living conditions of the sow, the mother pig, rather than the pigs that are raised and slaughtered for the pork product sold to consumers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ACCC considers that consumers are unlikely to interpret these marketing statements to refer to the sow and therefore considers that use of these statements in this context is likely to be misleading.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen claims such as ‘free range’ or ‘bred free range’ are misused, consumers may be misled into paying more for a product feature that doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d Mr Sims said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompetitors are also harmed as legitimate free range producers unfairly lose their competitive advantage. Innovation suffers when consumers and business lose trust in the integrity of claims.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The three court enforceable undertakings are available on the s87B undertakings register<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has investigated alleged misleading conduct in the pork industry arising from claims such as “free range”, “bred free range” and “bred outdoors”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":278023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,36],"tags":[1134],"yoast_head":"\nACCC Cracks Down On 'Porkies' - southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/09\/04\/accc-cracks-down-on-porkies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ACCC Cracks Down On 'Porkies' - southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has investigated alleged misleading conduct in the pork industry arising from claims such as "free range", "bred free range" and "bred outdoors".\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/09\/04\/accc-cracks-down-on-porkies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-04T10:33:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-11-17T04:30:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/rodsims2-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/09\/04\/accc-cracks-down-on-porkies\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/09\/04\/accc-cracks-down-on-porkies\/\",\"name\":\"ACCC Cracks Down On 'Porkies' - 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