Misleading food packaging

Animord

Something really bugs me and it is what I consider to be misleading food packaging.

For instance this morning my fresh milk most certainly wasn't. I can kind of see why milk has 'fresh' written on it because I suppose you could say it is to distinguish it from UHT milk.

'Garden Peas' however tip me over the edge. I have no reason to suspect that your peas, Mr Birds Eye, are anything but excellent, but they have never been next nor near a garden, have they? Seriously?

And last but not least (for the moment) Glensallagh Irish Beef Sausages. Ok, I get it, the packaging laws allow producers to say that it is Irish on the packaging because it is packed here. But they are not Irish, are they Mr Lidl? They are produced in Northern Ireland from EU beef. Not illegal and I am sure they are perfectly fine, but they are not what their cuddly, green-fieldy, Irishy packaging would have you believe.

Anyone else like to share?

Markcheese

Last time I checked the 6 counties were still on the island of Ireland, !
I think the garden peas could be to distinguish them from other varieties of peas( eg vining peas usually used as animal feed), but green peas would have done fine...
But yeah a lot of food labeling is bull,not illegal but still bull ...

Animord

The point is that they say they are Irish but they are only produced here. The beef is from the EU. I am not suggesting NI is not part of the island.

the beer revolu

Animord wrote: »

The point is that they say they are Irish but they are only produced here. The beef is from the EU. I am not suggesting NI is not part of the island.

Are homemade burgers homemade if you buy the mince in the butchers/supermarket?

Buzz Killington the third

Tesco everyday hummus contains less fat than Tesco Finest Low Fat hummus... makes no sense to me.

ScottSF

For me one of the most disappointing food labels here is "Donegal Catch" which implies the fish were caught in Ireland. I've picked up and put back many of their frozen fish products when I read they were sourced elsewhere. That is quite sad as I would gladly buy their products if they were indeed caught in the waters around Ireland.

The small print on Donegal Catch salmon identifies the fish as being of Norwegian, Irish, Chilean or Scottish origin

Mellor

Garden peas are the variety, its apparently been used for a few hundred years.

ScottSF wrote: »

For me one of the most disappointing food labels here is "Donegal Catch" which implies the fish were caught in Ireland. I've picked up and put back many of their frozen fish products when I read they were sourced elsewhere. That is quite sad as I would gladly buy their products if they were indeed caught in the waters around Ireland.

Donegal catch was clearly the brand name to me, not a description of the product. I'd never had assumed it meant it was caught in Donegal, especially as its the name of an area of land. Something like "Dublin Bay XXX", or "Irish Sea XXX" might be a bit more misleading.

rubadub

Buzz Killington the third wrote: »

Tesco everyday hummus contains less fat than Tesco Finest Low Fat hummus... makes no sense to me.

I have seen this on a few tesco products, like salad cream. Its does make sense to me, they are using cheaper water instead of oil. There are usually no low fat "value" items, they have just the one type, and calling it low fat might actually put people off.

ScottSF

Mellor wrote: »

Donegal catch was clearly the brand name to me, not a description of the product. I'd never had assumed it meant it was caught in Donegal, especially as its the name of an area of land. Something like "Dublin Bay XXX", or "Irish Sea XXX" might be a bit more misleading.

I have to believe that Donegal Catch used to get all their fish from around Ireland then at some point found it to be more profitable to import from elsewhere while keeping the brand name. Possibly true? I personally find it misleading, but perhaps Irish customers are more familiar with this "brand" than myself. Plus if you want to "Buy Irish" I wonder how many jobs it supports (in Donegal?) versus buying fresh fish that I know was caught and processed locally.

For me it is the same as if the package said "Wexford Farms" and the fruit or veg was imported from elsewhere in Europe.

MissFlitworth

I assumed Donegal Catch was caught off the coast of Donegal up until recently, mostly because having driven through Killybegs a good bit as a kid I'd associate Donegal with large scale fishing.

The descriptions that drive me most up the wall are 'home made' in cafés and restaurants when it comes to desserts, baked goods and pastries. Heating it up in house or opening the Cuisine de France box and letting things defrost is not 'home made'.

Descriptions of things done by hand, like 'hand cut chips', 'hand sliced ham' and is it Dairygold that advertises itself as being 'churned by hand' make me so ranty I'm hard to be around. I do not care if my chips were cut by hand or put through a machine, I very, very much doubt someone sliced that ham with a knife and churned by hand just makes zero sense (still using an old fashioned barrel-and-handle affair are we Dairygold). It's not so much that they're wrong but that they are pointless descriptions!

Dermighty

"Farm Fresh Chicken" which isn't free range....bollocks!

Mellor

eh..How's that misleading?
It's chicken, came fresh from the farm. It's not really claiming anything else.
Free range is quite specific and I'd imagine will always say free range. Am i missing something?

Animord

What is misleading is that 'farm' conjures up visions of green fields, soft rain and kindly old farmers feeding their happy chickens. The reality, of course, is a large factory with very little likelihood of the chickens ever seeing the outside world, without enough space and leading nothing like a 'farm' life.

Mellor

If somebody has a romantic misconception of a farm, Old Macdonald feed chicks from a bucket or whatever, thats their own mistake. Farms today are very industrial places. A sad fact but unfortunately true. I'd have no positive associations with the word "farm". (eg Farmed Salmon vrs Wild Salmon)

I guess I expect the worst from industry in these cases automatically.

MissFlitworth

I wonder is the disneyfied way kids are taught about farms anything to do with that feeling that they must be lovely places. This was a farm to me for years and years (although I also grew up among many, many fields of cows who looked happy and well looked after and were often to be seen chewing on buttercups)



Even in secondary school learning about farms tended to be something that, in my memory, was accompanied with a picture of 2 piglets with loads of room looking through a gate or something. Although I did see plenty of squashed animals on their way to mart so it's entirely probably my head is making up justifcations for how shocked I was when I realised that farming animals is often awful.

rubadub

Mellor wrote: »

Free range is quite specific

+1. specfic and would have legal definitions.

Farm is just marketing speak, I pay no more attention to it than if I read a product was "new & improved" or "premium" or "quality", a waste of ink.

fleet_admiral

Pictures can be misleading too. Birdseye chicken burgers look huge on the pack but are barely bigger than a jaffa cake in reality

MissFlitworth

There's a great German website that shows actual food versus the picture on the box of that food/ads for the food, some good some really bad

http://pundo3000.com/htms/100.htm

(Click on 'nächstes' for the next ones)

Carawaystick

Then there's Dublin bay prawns
Dijon mustard
Buffalo wings
Chicken fried steak
Welsh rabbit
Cod
Crab sticks

donalh087

Carawaystick wrote: »

Then there's Dublin bay prawns
Dijon mustard
Buffalo wings
Chicken fried steak
Welsh rabbit
Cod
Crab sticks

Dublin Bay prawns are called so because that was where they were sold. Wherever they were caught they were sold in Dublin Bay.

Buffalo wings come from the city of Buffalo in Texas.

Welsh Rabbit. I might just leave that one.

Don't know if this is the correct place but currently Kevin Dundon (he should know better) is advertising for Super Valu that you can buy 5 chicken fillets for €5. They are selling this as if it is a great offer.

What they are really selling is 5 half breasts for €5. The total weight is 500g. A normal medium sized breast weighs between 150g and 180g, So this is about 3 fillets - not 5. I hate this bullsh1t.

Muahahaha

MissFlitworth wrote: »

Descriptions of things done by hand, like 'hand cut chips', 'hand sliced ham' and is it Dairygold that advertises itself as being 'churned by hand' make me so ranty I'm hard to be around. I do not care if my chips were cut by hand or put through a machine, I very, very much doubt someone sliced that ham with a knife and churned by hand just makes zero sense (still using an old fashioned barrel-and-handle affair are we Dairygold). It's not so much that they're wrong but that they are pointless descriptions!

One of my pet hates at the moment is seeing on menus 'Hand-cut sandwiches'. It just sounds both daft and pretentious. How else were customers to expect the sandwich to be cut ?

I've never heard of a machine that can cut sandwiches, but to be perfectly honest if it does exist I'd prefer they use one of them than have their grubby paws all over my sandwich, machine-cut sandwiches FTW!

Another word creeping into everything is 'craft'. 'Craft' is the new 'Natural'.

Lobsterlady

MissFlitworth wrote: »

There's a great German website that shows actual food versus the picture on the box of that food/ads for the food, some good some really bad

http://pundo3000.com/htms/100.htm

(Click on 'nächstes' for the next ones)

Kebabs in a tin! Now that's hard to pull off!!

The Hill Billy

Muahahaha wrote: »

One of my pet hates at the moment is seeing on menus 'Hand-cut sandwiches'. It just sounds both daft and pretentious. How else were customers to expect the sandwich to be cut ?

I've never heard of a machine that can cut sandwiches, but to be perfectly honest if it does exist I'd prefer they use one of them than have their grubby paws all over my sandwich, machine-cut sandwiches FTW!

Another word creeping into everything is 'craft'. 'Craft' is the new 'Natural'.

Agreed, 'hand-cut' is a load of twaddle when buying a sambo in a café or the like.
However, pre-packed sandwiches are usually made on a production-line & they are machine-cut. The best results are with a very fine, high-powered jet of water as it doesn't 'tear' the filling like a knife would.
You learn something new every day.

Jawgap

Food Safety Authority ran a consultation on the use / abuse of such terms recently......

www.fsai.ie/consultations/

Some of my 'favourites' would be

• "Traditional"
• "Heritage"
• Anything as Gaeilge or with an Irish flag, shamrock or 'celtic' font
• "Artisinal"
• "Family"
• "Ocean Fresh"

Animord

Jawgap wrote: »

Food Safety Authority ran a consultation on the use / abuse of such terms recently......

www.fsai.ie/consultations/

Some of my 'favourites' would be

• "Traditional"
• "Heritage"
• Anything as Gaeilge or with an Irish flag, shamrock or 'celtic' font
• "Artisinal"
• "Family"
• "Ocean Fresh"

Ha! I know some producers who describe themselves as 'artisnal' and are about as much artisans as my elbow. They got very uppity about the whole thing and sent letters to the FSAI about it.

These people sell their products as being lovingly homemade, batch by batch. They imply they grow all their own ingredients which they don't. Even the county they give on their address is untrue - Co Cork - as it is more 'foodie' in their opinion than where they are actually made. It is very frustrating.

Markcheese

Well known brand of cider... Nothing added but time ??
And sugar,and colour and who knows what else... ?

Kovu

Carawaystick wrote: »

Then there's Dublin bay prawns
Dijon mustard
Buffalo wings
Chicken fried steak
Welsh rabbit
Cod
Crab sticks

I'm pretty sure you mean Welsh rarebit but I could be wrong!!

Mountainsandh

Dijon mustard, that recipe, did originate in Dijon, and the Maille one is still produced right outside of the town. Since the recipe is so different from other tasting mustards, I'm happy enough buying that particular type with its name tag even if it's produced elsewhere (as long as it tastes like the real thing, not like English/American mustard I mean).

I hate the term "premium", on things like mince for example.
It's so utterly ambiguous.

Premium as in : top quality ?
or
Premium as in : the cheapest/best value ?

And either way, what's the benchmark ?

cooperguy

I heard an ad on the radio for a café chain advertising their "espresso based coffees" What other sort of coffees are there!

A tesco ad for Irish potatoes really annoyed me recently too. They basically were describing crop rotation (which has been carried out by farmers since at least the middle ages) and implying they were doing something new and special when they are growing the crops. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydz9h66IYP8

Jezek

cooperguy wrote: »

I heard an ad on the radio for a café chain advertising their "espresso based coffees" What other sort of coffees are there!

Brewed coffees. They are very popular.

Animord

cooperguy wrote: »

A tesco ad for Irish potatoes really annoyed me recently too. They basically were describing crop rotation (which has been carried out by farmers since at least the middle ages) and implying they were doing something new and special when they are growing the crops. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydz9h66IYP8

That ad made me laugh. :rolleyes: She keeps saying that she rotates her land. Well I don't think so. As you said she might rotate her crops. Crop rotation is actually much older than the middle ages - they were doing it in the Middle East over 8000 years ago.