The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced on August 7 that it is investigating the claims raised in the recent Four Corners programme, which contained allegations about businesses misleading consumers with label claims.
ACCC Commissioner Luke Woodward said: “It is important that consumers can be confident that any claims made on food labelling, packaging and in advertisements are truthful, accurate and not misleading. We know that consumers may be guided by non-price factors, including claims about the country of origin or supply chain, when choosing which food products to buy.”
The allegations surfaced in a July 27 broadcast – titled “Duped: Food Exposed” – by Four Corners, an investigative journalism and current affairs programme under the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
It claimed that common pantry products – including eggs, spices, and seafood – were found to carry misleading labels or contain adulteration.
The testing was conducted by Source Certain, an Australian forensic traceability laboratory commissioned by Four Corners to analyse products from Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and smaller retailers.
After testing hundreds of food products across multiple brands, Source Certain reported what ABC described as “damning results”.
Food fraud allegations
Processed tomatoes produced some of the most notable findings, with one in four products tested either failing country-of-origin testing or being flagged for further investigation.
One of the brands tested was Leggo’s, one of Australia’s most well-known processed tomato brands owned by US food giant Simplot.
Of the 43 Leggo’s products tested across multiple batches, 27 tomato paste products did not match their claimed origin, with chemical profiles consistent with Chinese tomatoes.
“While [Leggo’s] diced tomatoes and passata passed origin testing, 27 paste products failed. That’s more than 80% that had chemical profiles consistent with China. That matters because Leggo’s marketing strongly emphasises Australian-grown tomatoes – local farms and local growers,” said Source Certain Chief Technical Officer Cameron Scadding.
Rosso Gargano, Aldi’s Remano brand and Coles home brand Italian tomato paste also tested positive for Chinese origin, though they claim to be made with Italian or Australian tomatoes.
The lab also tested turmeric from 11 brands, 28 products from 14 stores. Hoyt’s is one of the brands that was studied.
“Inside the Hoyt’s brand in particular we found that that had been adulterated by a mineral component, specifically an iron oxide. Inside that we could see different phases of the iron, which indicates it actually kind of a crushed-up rock. An actual iron oxide has been added which is not uncommon from an adulteration point of view. It’s added for colour, it’s also added for weight,” said Scadding.
Three turmeric products tested also contained lead chromate, a lead-based yellow pigment used in paints and plastics that is not allowed to be added to food in Australia.
Gourmet Organic’s turmeric was also found to have been “bulked up with a cheaper, starchy plant-based ingredient”, despite its on-pack claim that it contains only organic turmeric.
The finding raises questions about whether consumers can reliably distinguish genuine product claims from those that merely create a perception of quality.
Misleading label claims a marketing ploy?
Apart from investigating origin label claims, ABC also looked into allegedly deceptive marketing on-pack.
Former food technologist Tan Min Sheen said food marketers often use the term to appeal to consumers, even though ingredients such as emulsifiers and tapioca starch may feature in products marketed as natural.
The difficulty is that “natural” has no single, universally accepted definition, as organisations find it complex and difficult to pin down at which point does processing (such as pasturisation or GMO breeding) change a natural material into an artificial one. This makes it challenging for regulators to establish where the boundary between natural and artificial lies.
The FDA has a long-standing policy stating that “natural” means no artificial or synthetic ingredient was added, but it is not an enforced statutory definition.
Similarly, EU food law does not have legal definition for “natural food” claims.
A US study also found that consumers have widely different ideas of what constitutes a natural product.
“So what constitutes natural? It’s an easy free pass for marketeers to use in the food industry.” said Tan.
Eggs are facing mislabelling issues as well.
Cage-free eggs can command a premium from consumers seeking products aligned with animal-welfare considerations. However, Source Certain found that one South Australian brand repeatedly failed its origin testing.
“The label is misrepresenting the product,” said Scadding. “We get that from the trace elements that are in the egg, these are intrinsic to the product, independent of all the labels. We can actually get from that fingerprint an indication about how it’s been grown in this example of the eggs.”
How Source Certain conducted the forensic testing
The forensic tests analyse a food product’s chemical fingerprint, which can reflect the soil, water and climate where it was produced. This fingerprint is compared with verified reference samples to assess whether the product’s claimed origin matches the evidence.
“Absolute certainty is not possible in forensic science, but the laboratory only reports an origin finding when it is sufficiently confident in the evidence,” said Scadding.
Tackling misleading labels opens a can of worms
The findings highlight the economic pressures that can make food fraud difficult to tackle, particularly when imported products compete with higher-cost domestic production.
The issue of labour and overhead costs, as well as ethics, are called into question.
Source Certain also reported that around 40–45% of the farmed white-fish products it tested were not of Australian origin despite carrying Australian-origin claims.
“So what we found with all those ones that failed is almost all of those products had come in from Vietnam,” said Scadding.
The findings highlight the cost pressures facing Australian producers, who can face higher labour, production and compliance costs than suppliers in lower-cost producing countries such as Vietnam.
This cost differential can create an economic incentive for businesses across the supply chain to seek cheaper inputs.
The tomato industry faces the same issues, according to Hussein Rifai, former chairman of SPC, one of Australia’s biggest fruit and tomato processors.
Rifai went undercover as an Egyptian buyer in Southern Italy and met with Italian tomato processing companies who said they supply to Australian supermarkets Woolworths and Coles. He said the cheap labour overseas undercuts Australian growers and manufacturers.
As for the China-origin tomatoes flagged by Source Certain, the lab said it was 98% confident that the failed tomatoes came from China, with more than half potentially narrowed to Xinjiang.
The region has been subject to longstanding allegations and scrutiny over forced labour, but the forensic testing itself does not establish whether forced labour was involved in producing the tomatoes.
This raises an issue about the economics of food fraud. When market demand puts pressure on prices, suppliers may face incentives to keep production costs down, potentially creating opportunities for corners to be cut further up the supply chain. Without sufficient traceability and oversight, this can make practices such as food fraud or labour exploitation harder to detect.
Janine Curll, a former NSW Food Authority enforcement officer who was also featured in the Four Corners programme, said Australia does not routinely check for food fraud.
She said food businesses should also be required to assess their vulnerabilities to food fraud and ensure products are labelled correctly.
Meanwhile, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) expressed support for the ACCC’s initiative to look into the claims made in the Four Corners programme, saying it will continue to work with regulators, industry and consumer representatives to support a safe, trusted and transparent food system.
“It is good to see the issues and alleged industry practices raised by Four Corners are being taken seriously by regulators. Australia is recognised both domestically and internationally for the quality, safety and integrity of its food supply and exports. Consumer confidence in the claims made by food producers and manufacturers is vital to maintaining that trust here and abroad,” said FSANZ CEO, Dr Sandra Cuthbert.
