December 11, 2006

Australian pork company denies misleading label 

Australian Pork Limited is calling on KR Castlemaine, Australia's biggest producer of Christmas hams, to withdraw one of its products from the market.

APL is angry at KR Castlemaine for marketing a processed ham, which combines the meat from a Canadian pig with the bone of an Australian pig.

KR Castlemaine's chief executive Mike Adams answered that the product is not misleadingly labelled, and the company is not breaking the law.

Adams explained that the product might not look like the traditional bone-in ham as it is manufactured. It might not look like the regular Christmas ham in terms of colour and shape, but it is not misleading.

However, Australian Pork Limited's Andrew Spencer was firm that while the company might not be breaking the law, the ham should be taken off the shelves.

Spencer pointed that the label is clearly inaccurate. He said that when a product is called "ham on the bone," consumers expect the bone to come from the same animal as the meat itself. In Castlemaine's product, it is not the case, Spencer stressed.