$400,000 penalties for false labelling

The Federal Court has ordered Baiada Poultry Pty Ltd and Bartter Enterprises Pty Ltd, the processers and suppliers of Steggles branded chicken products to pay $400,000 in penalties.
It said that the companies engaged in false, misleading and deceptive conduct when it described on product packaging and in advertising that its meat chickens were ‘free to roam in large barns’.
The Court found that prior to day 42 of a growth cycle that may be up to 56 days the chickens were kept at stocking densities that did not allow them to move around at will.
The Australian Chicken Meat Federation Inc (ACMF), the peak industry body for Australia’s chicken meat industry, was also ordered to pay $20,000 in penalties.

http://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/court-orders-chicken-companies-to-pay-400000-for-%E2%80%98free-to-roam%E2%80%99-misleading-claims

Now this is out of the way, hopefully the ACCC and the courts will make a start of some of Australia's intensive egg producers who label their eggs as free range. The industry needs a legal definition of the term 'free range' - not the spin used by the corporate egg producers who control the Australian Egg Corporation.

WA Labor starts to tackle 'free range' con

The WA Labor opposition has come out strongly in support of toughening labelling regulations for free range eggs.
Have a look at this article in the West Australian newspaper:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/news/13228740/free-range-egg-claims-false-labor/
Unfortunately the WA Minister for Agriculture has made the rather dumb claim that legislation is already adequate to deal with false labelling. If he really believes that, how come consumers are still being ripped off?

'Free range' complaint lodged with Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

After discussions with a number of free range and cage egg producers, today I lodged a complaint against the Australian Egg Corporation Ltd with the ACCC over its endorsement of 'free range' egg production standards.

Research which is publicly available on the website of the Poultry CRC (which is funded from a levy paid by all egg producers) shows that only 9% of 'free range' egg laying hens actually use an outdoor range area. The details can be seen at  http://www.poultryhub.org/index.php/EChook_News/Enriching_the_range_to_reduce_feather_pecking

In our view, this clearly demonstrates that consumers are being mislead and deceived by a system that is endorsed and approved by the Australian Egg Corporation.

And the industry recognises that things will become even more deceptive if the AECL goes ahead with its draft 'free range' standard. The Egg Corporation tries to pretend that's it's only a small number of 'troublemakers' who are voicing concerns - but the reality is that even big cage farmers recognise that the AECL's proposed definition for 'free range' is a crock which will harm the reputation of the whole industry.

The AECL seems hell-bent on sending the message to consumers that 'You can't trust labels on eggs'