One of Australia's biggest tomato brands and two major supermarkets are selling products that independent scientific testing shows do not match the country of origin stated on their labels.
Forensic testing conducted for Four Corners has revealed dozens of tomato paste and passata products that claim to be from Australia or Italy are actually from China.
About half of those are sourced from Xinjiang, an area known internationally for its use of forced labour.
The majority of Leggo's tomato paste products tested, in tins, cans, and bottles, were found to have misleading labels. The company, owned by US food giant Simplot, makes strong claims on its packaging that it sources from Australian farms.
...
Coles Italian tomato paste also failed, along with Aldi's home brand Remano paste.
The findings are part of a major eight-month Four Corners investigation into what is really in the food you buy.
...
The testing was conducted by Source Certain, a leading forensic laboratory that has worked with the FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol and the Australian Federal Police.
It analysed 221 processed tomato products from 39 brands, including paste, passata and diced tomato.
Twenty-two per cent of the products failed country-of-origin testing, while a further 6 per cent were flagged for further testing.
All of the tomato products that failed testing came from China. Of those, the lab traced 53 per cent to Xinjiang. The rest were confirmed as Chinese but the exact region could not be identified.
...
no comments (yet)