Supermarkets busted for false fruit labelling

ABC Rural

Peter Darley, from the horticulture committee
of the NSW Farmers Association, expects more
cases of false fruit labelling to be uncovered by the
NSW Food Authority. (Brad Markham)

Two supermarkets in Sydney have been caught selling imported fruit as Australian.

Woolworths will pay a fine of $1,540 for advertising American lemons as Australian at its Newington store and Coles at St Marys will pay an $880 penalty for not disclosing its grapefruit was from Israel.

The supermarkets have been put on the NSW Food Authority's Name and Shame Register.

Peter Darley, on the Horticulture Committee of the NSW Farmers Association says the large food barns are the worst culprits at not displaying where the fresh fruit and vegetables come from.

"They're the ones that are certainly not complying and that's disappointing," he said.

"In one respect it's interesting to see that Woolworths and Coles have been caught in this, but I think there's a lot of others out there that will be caught in the investigations as the Food Authority steps up their investigations and inspections."

Woolworths says it was "an isolated case of human error", where individual lemons from the USA were correctly labelled, but the shelf said the lemons were Australian. The company says 97 per cent of its frest produce is locally grown. Coles has yet to respond to calls from the ABC.