Supermarket giant Coles is facing more than $3 million in fines for misleading customers over the freshness of its bread.
The Federal Court agreed with the consumer watchdog that Coles falsely advertised pre-cooked bread as freshly baked.
Bread advertised as "fresh, baked today and sold today" included one product from Ireland first baked months earlier.
Coles had breached three sections of Australian Consumer Law, Justice James Allsop ruled.
In his judgment, Chief Justice Allsop said:
"It is not the place of the court to provide an advice …as to how Coles might sell bread that has been par-baked from frozen product…A start would, however, be to make it tolerably clear to the public that the recent baking was the completion of a baking process that had taken place sometime before, off site, and that 'freshly baked' actually meant the completion of the baking process of frozen product prepared and frozen off site by suppliers."
We didn't deliberately mislead people: Coles
In a statement to SBS, Coles said the company never set out to "deliberately mislead anybody" and will do a "better job at explaining" how their products are baked.
"In talking to customers about the 'par-baked' bread range we certainly never set out to deliberately mislead anybody but we completely accept that we could have done a better job in explaining how the products are baked. We are already well advanced in changing product packaging and other information."
Independent bakeries at a competitive disadvantage: ACCC
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched proceedings against Coles last week, alledging that their supply of bread was "false, misleading and deceptive" in conduct.
In a statement, ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said Coles misled the public and placed smaller, independently-owned bakieries at a competitive disadvantage.
"The ACCC brought these proceedings because it was concerned that Coles’ ‘Baked Today’ and ‘Freshly Baked’ claims about par baked bread were likely to mislead consumers," said Mr Sims.
"These claims also placed independently-owned and franchised bakeries that freshly bake bread from scratch each day at a competitive disadvantage."
The ACCC claimed that Coles baked goods were par-baked and frozen in countries like Denmark, Germany and Ireland, before being 'finished off' in a local store.
