‘Free-range’ egg farmer charged

The commission alleges that falsely labelled free-range eggs were sold to retail and wholesale customers.

A West Auckland egg farmer faces eight charges laid by the Commerce Commission for falsely labelling millions of eggs as free-range.

Xue (Frank) Chen, the owner of Gold Chick Poultry Farm, faces four charges of obtaining by deception and four charges of making misleading representations and breaching the Fair Trading Act.

Although Chen produced and sold some free-range eggs at his company’s farm, the commission alleges that between September 2015 and October 2017, he sold millions of caged eggs as freerange, by arranging for caged eggs to be purchased and repackaged.

The commission alleges that the falsely labelled eggs were sold to retail and wholesale customers who paid higher prices in the belief that they were receiving free-range eggs.

Gold Chick Poultry Farm is the trading name of Black Water Trading Ltd, of which Chen is the sole shareholder and director.

The industry was rocked by revelations in March last year that millions of caged eggs had been sold as free-range in Countdown supermarkets.

All major New Zealand supermarkets have committed to stopping the sale of caged eggs over the next nine years.

The commission said it was important traders could back up claims that consumers could not themselves verify, such as ‘‘freerange’’, ‘‘organic’’, or ‘‘made in NZ’’.