I think it also pays to read between the lines carefully. The answer for food products is usually there somewhere. And hopefully who the real manufacturer or producer may be.
Some traps I’ve noted.
- Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients. If they are Greek Kalamata olives reassurance would be they are from Greece, but not always. Otherwise I assume the business/country of origin when silent is not an economy worthy of customer loyalty.
- Brand ‘XYZ’ an Australian Company accompanied by a clear Aussie flag or similar logo. Really just the opportunistic wholesale supplier of a substantially or wholly imported product. If the product is substantially Australian no need to say anymore about the manufacturer? Dick Smith started with good intent. Now others think it is OK to imitate the image simply because the importer, possibly also repackaging, is Australian registered. This does not preclude foreign ownership or equity.
- Insert ‘Aussie Placename’ branded product. Cunningly this can have little to do with the source of the product or location of the company owning the brand. ‘Mooloo Mountain Milk’ is one such example. It’s a trade mark used by Parmalat, and is/was also a company trading as a Milk producer at Hervey Bay Qld. Mooloo Mountain and the last remnants of the dairy farms nearby are more than 100km distant by road. And much further from any Parmalat facility. Geographically, Mooloo is south-west of Gympie and very close to the Cooloola Milk producer. And not that much further from Kenilworth. Locals will know what this is saying.
I’m politely suggesting that the country of origin of imported product is for us a much less significant concern than the misrepresentations we face everyday with Australian brand labelling and products. Fix one, hopefully we can fix all.
P.S.
Our pork, bacon etc comes from a local butcher. Piggery details established, the bacon is cured on premises.
