Examine the small print extra carefully
MOOI RIVER butter, the Clover brand, is named after the KwaZuluNatal Midlands hamlet where the company was first based, and the wax paper wrapping on the 500g brick bears an image of a farm scene.
Turn the brick over, though, and you’ll find four words that will make any proud South African do a double take: “Product of New Zealand.” What’s that about? I asked Clover’s deputy CEO Manie Roode.
Turns out there was an “undersupply” of local milk in the winter months – too little to produce enough butter for the SA market – so Clover was faced with two choices: cut back on its supply of butter into the marketplace, or import it.
“Consumers have short memories – if your brand isn’t available for a few months, many will switch to another,” Roode said.
Given Clover’s strong ties with the New Zealand-based dairy cooperative Fonterra, the biggest exporter of dairy in the world, the company opted to import 1 000 tons of its butter a few months ago.
It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, but so far it’s the biggest.
Roode said Clover had been selling the New Zealand Mooi River butter at a loss. Consumers, meanwhile, are reeling from the staggering increase in the price of butter this year, to well over R30 for 500g.
By law, the country of origin has to appear on food products sold in SA, hence the declaration on Mooi River butter’s packaging.
The last of the latest batch of Fonterra-sourced Mooi River butter will be sold in the coming months, Roode said.
Meanwhile, the local milk supply has increased dramatically since the spring rains.
“What was different about this year’s import was that the the local demand for [butter] fat was bigger than in previous years and we’re not 100 percent sure why,” he said.
The company’s Springbok brand of butter has remained South African, possibly because the sight of the words New Zealand on that brand may have proved too much for local rugby fans. VANITY and greed – two human conditions that see many a consumer part ways with their money.
Scores of SA women are being duped by adverts on Facebook and other sites into giving their credit card details to a purported Danish “anti-ageing” cosmetics company, for a relatively inexpensive “trial sample”, only to have their accounts debited for more than R1 600.
I’ve had quite a few complaints from victims of this “subscription” scam.
The anti-ageing range is called Formlife, and the company claims to be “Nordic Health Group APS” of Denmark, but as this is the internet we’re talking about, who knows?
The site features very obviously doctored before and after photos of women who have purportedly reversed the clock by at least 20 years by using Formlife’s products. It invites consumers to pay just R30, including shipping and “handling”, for a trial “welcome pack” of products.
Under that invitation appears a smaller, fainter paragraph that reads: “By using credit card (sic), you accept that it is automati- cally charged for deliveries according to the agreed terms and conditions, unless otherwise stated.”
The site has a pre-placed tick in the confirmation box, so the order can be processed without the consumer actually ticking the box themselves, to confirm that they have indeed read the Ts and Cs – a very dodgy practice.
Because by clicking on the words “terms and conditions” in that section, you get to discover what you’re actually agreeing to.
You’re agreeing to “enter into an agreement about current subscription… and to pay for the welcome package and the first ordinary consignment”.
Two weeks after the welcome package is sent, R1 545 will be charged for the “discount club”, plus R90 for shipping. Then three months later, another R1 635, and so on. That’s R6 540 a year.
Anyone who bothered to click and read would never go ahead and supply their credit card details.
As I’ve been saying for years, the smaller and more boring the print looks, the more important it is for you to read it – whether online or on paper.