ACCC and agribusiness, page-4

  1. 4,788 Posts.
    there's certainly a lot of opinion on the subject;

    "SA Country Hour Summary
    Thursday 4/7/2002

    Olive over-supply? -

    Fears of an olive surplus are justified according to Jim Smythe General Manager of the South Australian Olive Corporation based in Loxton. But he says it’s the smaller growers and boutique suppliers who’ll suffer rather than the larger bulk processors like his company. "We won’t be affected because we have large sales of olive oil, which are increasing all the time, and we have developed our business on supermarket sales rather than boutique sales, which I feel are limited."

    TFR 19 January, 1999
    "Most of the olive oil that comes into Australia from overseas is very inferior because it is high in acid content", Mr Troy said. "There is a dishonesty in the marketing of imported olive oils - very often claims by importers that an oil is pure is crap."

    So why import oil if there's as surplus and the imported stuff "is crap"?

    The change in label is their considered response to the landline program and they are still standing by the "all australian" tag.

    ABC Radio
    SA Country Hour Summary
    Friday 18/10/2002

    Misleading labels claim against olive oil - Fleur Bainger

    Australia’s largest olive oil producer will defend its labels in court after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued proceedings against it. Viva Olive Oils will go to South Australia’s Federal Court for allegedly labelling products as containing all Australian produce, when up to 20 per cent was imported olive oil. Even though the labels have long been changed. Viva Olive Oils has denied the allegations.

    But ACCC Regional Director Bob Weymouth says the action is justified. "One of the important things here is, this is the only Australian, or it’s promoted as the only Australian, brand olive oil that is in the supermarket range, in other words it’s not a small niche olive oil, and as part of the promotion the company has established this image as being Australian, being the only Australian brand and highlighting the benefits of Australian oil. It is our concern that consumers aren’t going to read the fine print on the label now after having bought the product for several years in the belief that it’s Australian."

    As Bob Wehmouth says Viva Olive Oils has denied the allegations saying their interpretation of the ACCCs labelling rules was correct at the time. And Mark Troy who’s the director of the parent company the SA Olive Corporation says they would’ve been able to explain this to the ACCC had the consumer watchdog agreed to meet with them. "We had solicitors advice and we felt we were entitled to call the product Australian because of its high Australian content so we certainly at no stage made a deliberate misrepresentation. The President of the Australian Olive Association became aware that we had a proportion of imported oil and discussed with me the desirability of acknowledging that on the label and I freely agreed to do it."

    Viva have lost some market, Cobrahm Estates has signed up with Coles and WOW is not happy.This situation could be good for TIM, provididng it happens as they say it will.


 
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