[box border=”full”]CHOICE welcomes news that the ACCC is cracking down on bottled water companies who use the word ‘organic’ in their label.[/box]
Big brands names such as Active Organic, Lithgow Valley Springs Organic, Nature’s Best Organic, Organic Australia, Organic Falls, Organic Nature’s Best and Organic Springs will no longer be seen on shelves.
Brand names that imply naturalness and healthiness are an ongoing issue for consumers, making it difficult to determine whether something is healthy or not. IP Australia, the regulatory authority tasked with approving trademark applications, doesn’t require any nutritional testing of products prior to approval.
A CHOICE review has found Australians are paying 2000 times more than the cost of tap water to drink from a bottle even though 93% of households are connected to town water.
“A word like organic is a trigger word to shoppers – implying health benefits. This is a very popular terms for food marketers. There are currently are over 300 products on the market that are trademarked as ‘organic’. It’s time for manufacturer’s to stop relying on healthy -sounding words to boost sales of products,” says CHOICE spokesperson Tom Godfrey.
“A large proportion of bottled water cost comes from producing the plastic bottle, lid and label – not to mention marketing. When you consider consumers are paying $3.88 for a 600ml bottle of Mount Franklin water when they could be paying $0.002 for 1 litre of Sydney tap water.
Australian consumers spend a whopping $500 million a year on 600 mega litres of water.