Woolies admits wrong labels on fruit

 30 October, 2015 00:15

In its defence, Woolworths said there was a "packaging error" and this had been taken up with the supplier. File photo
Image by: JAMES OATWAY

Are products sourced from Israel or not? This question led a Durban customer of Woolworths to complain to the National Consumer Commission.

The complaint has resulted in an industry-wide investigation into labelling and trade descriptions.

On two different occasions within the space of a few months the Woolworths customer noticed two different labels on the packaging of fruit.

A label on oranges said they were from Israel, but a second label indicated the same oranges were from Spain.

A few months later she bought a punnet of fruit that had two different labels with the country of origin - one said Israel and the other said South Africa.

In the complaint, the customer said she wanted Woolworths to be fined for "purposefully defrauding consumers" and for all proceeds to be donated to charity.

In its defence, Woolworths said there was a "packaging error" and this had been taken up with the supplier.

The upset consumer was compensated with a R50 voucher.

Consumer commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed said yesterday: "I wish to clarify the fact that the NCC investigation is not into false Israeli labelling by Woolworths, but rather a much broader industry-wide investigation focusing on labelling and trade descriptions by retailers, including Woolworths."

Together with other activists, anti-Israel lobby group Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions intends raising the practice of false-labelling of Israeli products at the Woolworths annual general meeting next month
.