Dannon Pty Ltd, which distributes the Ceres fruit juice products in Australia, has acknowledged that the '100 per cent fruit juice' labelling on some of its products may have misled consumers.
Dannon has provided court-enforceable undertakings to the Australia Competition and Consumer Commission in relation to its packaging.
"The undertakings are the latest enforcement action the ACCC has been required to take against fruit juice distributors*", ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today.
"The ACCC was concerned that the composition of the fruit juices was being misrepresented.
"In particular, the illustrations and representations on the packaging of many of the Ceres range of juices created the overall impression that those juices contained 100 per cent of the characterising fruit, when in fact those juices contained a number of different juices.
"The ACCC was also concerned that all of the juices in the Ceres fruit juice range were labelled as '100% fruit juice blend' when the addition of vitamin C meant that this was not the case.
"When the matter was brought to the company's attention it cooperated fully and swiftly".
Dannon has agreed that:
- it will not in the future create an overall impression that a juice product contains 100 per cent of a particular fruit juice when that is not the case; nor will it represent a fruit juice to be a 100 per cent product when vitamin C has been added
- it will publish a corrective notice, and
- it will implement and maintain a trade practices law compliance program.
*see also ACCC Warns Fruit Juice Industry on Misleading Claims (MR 109/05, 9 May 2005), Berri Corrects Superjuice Claims (MR 113/05, 11 May 2005), and Juice Distributor Corrects Fruit Juice Labels (MR 130/05, 26 May 2005).