NZ liquor importers fined for improperly labelled bottles

A New Zealand company has been fined for attempting to sell thousands of bottles of alcohol without legitimate labels.

Ace Health Limited and two managers were sentenced on a total of seven charges under the Food Act 2014 in the Auckland District Court, following a prosecution by New Zealand Food Safety.

The company was fined $108,000 and each manager fined $21,600 for removing the lot codes that ensure product traceability from almost 4000 bottles of liquor. The codes are either etched into the glass or placed on the label to assist in product recalls and assure consumers that the product contents are genuine and have not been changed in any way.

New Zealand Food Safety Deputy-Director General Vincent Arbuckle said the company would have saved about 7% of the cost price by importing these bottles, meaning that it stood to profit by selling them in New Zealand. The contents of the bottles were not counterfeit, despite the illegal packaging.

“Label integrity matters and when businesses try to get around the rules they are at best deceiving consumers, and at worst putting them at risk,” Arbuckle said.

“In this case, our testing showed that the product was genuine, but that doesn’t excuse the offending.

“Consumers deserve to know that the product they are consuming is safe and suitable and the lot numbers help provide that assurance. Also, if a recall was required, the lack of lot code would make it difficult for us to trace affected product.

“We take this type of offending seriously and will take action to ensure businesses do the right thing by consumers.”

The investigation of the company started in 2019 after it had received a warning for the same offence two years prior.

The non-compliant alcohol was destroyed.

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