EGGS — LABELLING
521. Hon COLIN de GRUSSA to the Minister for Agriculture and
Food:
I refer to an article in The West
Australian of 14 May, which states that egg producer Snowdale Holdings was
fined $750 000 for deceiving consumers through false labelling of eggs in 2017.
(1) Is the
minister aware if CF Farms, formerly operating as Snowdale Holdings, or any of
its brands, including The Good Farmer Free
Range Eggs, Bloom Free Range Eggs, Mrs Fischer, Beermullah Egg Co or
Hens of the Earth, are the subject of the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission inquiry in egg labelling in Western Australia?
(2) Has the
minister raised any concerns with the ACCC in relation to CF Farms, formerly
operating as Snowdale Holdings, or any of its brands?
(3) If yes to (2), will the minister
please detail those concerns?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the question.
(1)–(3) The
ACCC's policy is not to release details of its investigations while
they are underway, obviously, because of
concerns about compromising those developments. It is important to understand
that the 2017 ruling from the ACCC was the result of a visit to that
property for completely unrelated purposes, by an officer of the then
Department of Agriculture and Food, who observed very unorthodox packaging
practices and reported it to the ACCC. I want to say this: I think we have a fundamental
problem with what we are doing here. This issue of whether an egg is free range
is very important to consumers, and it is very important to farmers who
undertake additional expense and stewardship in adopting free-range chicken
farming and who are finding it difficult to get a fair remuneration. We need a stronger
system. The system we have at the moment
relies on a statement or some rules around what constitutes a free-range
egg—what it has to be to be a free-range egg—but there is no
monitoring system. It relies on random reports of suspicions that someone might
be acting improperly. I do not think that this is an adequate system. It is not
adequate for farmers and it is not adequate for consumers. I want to talk to
the industry about a different process whereby accreditation may be required
before a producer can sell eggs as free range and a system of compliance
monitoring so there is some rigour in the system that will underpin consumer
confidence in our agricultural product.