Fruit versus flavour

That plump, juicy-looking image displayed on the front of labels could be leading you astray if the product is, in fact, fruitless.

- JENNIFER BOWDEN

QUESTION: I was shocked to read in the "ingredients" list for a fruit-flavoured yoghurt powder that it contained no actual fruit, or even real fruit extract, despite the lovely fruit pictures on the front of the packages. How legal is this and how much other food packaging is blatantly wrong?

ANSWER: Was a consumer, you have every right to expect food labels to display accurate information. The Hansells boysenberry yoghurt powder mix you bought has hether a yoghurt contains real fruit or simply fruit flavouring is a valid question because, the product name "boysenberry yoghurt" in large letters on the front label above a picture of boysenberries when it does not contain any real boysenberries. A number of other food manufacturers use a similar approach in their labelling.

The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code sets out legal requirements for labelling, composition, safety, handling and food production and processing in New Zealand and Australia. Standard 1.2.2 provides specific information requirements for food labels. Among these, the product name or description should be "sufficient to indicate the true nature of the food".

Food Standards Australia New Zealand produces posters that provide further details on food labels, and these posters include the example of a fruit yoghurt, noting, for instance, that "If the yoghurt contained strawberry flavouring rather than real fruit, then the name would need to indicate that it is strawberry-flavoured yoghurt."

Another FSANZ poster elaborates on the same fruit yoghurt example: "Fair trading laws and food laws in Australia and New Zealand require that labels do not misinform through false, misleading or deceptive representations. For example, a food with a picture of strawberries on the label must contain strawberries."