Kerri-Anne caught up in fishy vitamin promo

A CHINESE-owned vitamin giant promoted by TV star Kerri-Anne Kennerley is taking the consumer cops to court so it can keep marketing imported fish oil capsules as Australian.

The Federal Court action filed by Nature’s Care against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is the first test of tougher country of origin labelling laws that passed federal Parliament last year.

The ACCC, which has the job of enforcing the new laws, has said putting imported active ingredients in a capsule in Australia is “unlikely to” qualify as Australian-made because it isn’t a “substantial transformation” that creates a fundamental difference between the imported oil and final product. By contrast, making a tablet or essential oil here from raw imported ingredients gets the green (and gold) light from the ACCC.

In documents News Corp Australia obtained from the Federal Court, Nature’s Care says its soft gel capsules are substantially transformed in Australia.

“The collection of raw ingredients including fish oil as it exists prior to encapsulation is fundamentally different in identity, nature and essential character from the finished goods, being the soft gel capsule containing Fish Oil + vitamin D,” Nature’s Care says.

The company wants a declaration that its products are “last substantially transformed” in Australia.

It also argues that “in any event … it is neither misleading or deceptive to describe those goods as ‘made in Australia’ given the process of encapsulation that occurs in Australia.”

Nature’s Care says if it can’t market its wares as Australiamade it will have to “bear the cost of changing its packaging for a wide range of products, will lose competitive advantage of being able to use the ‘Made in Australia’ logo and experience a reduction in sales of encapsulated products and hence revenue”.

Nature’s Care’s 2017 financial report, obtained by News Corp Australia, says it experienced a rise in revenue compared with the previous calendar year “mainly due to an increased demand from Asia, especially China”.

As has been seen in the baby formula market, the rapidly expanding Chinese middle class has a voracious appetite for edible Australianmade goods.

Nature’s Care is Australia’s country’s third-largest vitamin seller, with sales of $172 million in 2017 leading to a net profit of $37 million. While it has a manufacturing plant in Sydney, it is controlled by two Chinese equity firms headquartered in Singapore and the Cayman Islands.

An ACCC spokeswoman said it was “unable to comment as the matter is before the court’’.