Woolies Mislabeling Dairy for years

 

 

 The Woolworths dairy claims investigation was a joint effort by Grass Consumer founders. Please see our closing statement here.

Grass Responds to Ian Moir, CEO of Woolworths

Dear Ian Moir,Thank you for your recent reply to our open letter, which has raised some alarming questions.As the CEO of Woolworths, how in touch are you with your Food Teams? Do you know and care how Woolworths food is produced?  If you do, then why do your statements conflict with those made to us by your Dairy Team over a period of 20 months?See the rest of the Grass letter here 

View the Original Grass Letter  to Ian Moir, CEO of Woolworths 

(https://grassconsumeraction.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/an-open-letter-to-ian-moir-ceo-of-woolworths/)

and it can be viewed on BizNews (http://www.biznews.com/health/2014/10/woolworths-open-letter-ceo-ian-moir-misleading-marketing-labels/)

 

Grass is receiving a number of queries about the Woolworths Dairy Issue, so we have created this temporary page to direct you to various links…if you still have queries, then please contact us at sonia@grass.org.za. We welcome and encourage participation and interaction with South African consumers to form a united and vocal consumer voice. See Our Vision here.

 

See here for the latest Grass response to Woolworths statements in Sunday Times article – 21 September, 2014

 

See here for Grass Pleads with Woolworths

 

Background to the Story

The Grass Team discovered that consumers were being led to believe, through misleading labels and marketing, that they were purchasing higher ethically produced Woolworths Ayrshire and Organic dairy products than was the reality. We therefore sent a letter in April this year to Woolworths, along with a Dairy Commitment List asking them to change the farming practices to match the years of misleading marketing messages and labeling of these products.

See the Grass letter to Woolworths here. https://grassconsumeraction.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/grass-asks-woolworths-to-commit-to-more-ethical-dairy-farming-practices/

The Grass Dairy Commitment List, has never received the promised formal response. It covers the areas of concern that we discovered over the 20 month investigation into Woolworths Dairy practices. Please view the document and if YOU agree that Woolworths must respond, formally, as they promised, then write to Justin Smith, head of The Good Business Journey, and ask them to do just that. You can e-mail custserv@woolworths.co.za  and cc GRASS at sonia@grass.org.za

Since this story broke, Grass has received other information from farmers highlighting other dairy farming concerns that we should raise. Such as  “continuous use of low-dose antibiotics in the feed, which is standard (stops mastitis, and increases the size of the animal so they mature quicker and don’t get sick)” and what is “the average lactation age of cows when they are removed from milk-producing duties and are slaughtered”.

 “If people could see where their milk comes from, with cows on their third lactation (if they’re lucky enough to go that far), barely able to walk because they have been selectively bred for large udders and large udders droop and stretch at every lactation, they would never drink milk again. These second and third year lactators CANNOT walk any distance to pastures, their udders are too large. It is a disgusting business and the cruelty goes on for years. they are also milked every 8 hours by rotating machines, not people.” Retired Dairy Farmer in South Africa

 

Travelwrite broke the story here.

Grass Responds to Woolworths (see our response here to the recent marketing video release)

See letters from Woolworths Customers 

Links to other sites about this dairy story

Just one of the many angry letters to Woolworths