ISLAMABAD: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has directed the companies involved in marketing food items to refrain from misdeclarations and tell facts to customers.

The CCP took notice of several food companies, including the marketing campaign of Sunland Foods, which claimed that its ‘Fruit Farm’ juice was 100 per cent pure fruit juice.

However, the CCP team checked the ingredients written at the label on bottle, which revealed that the juice contained Preservatives E202, E211 and E224 and Color E160; therefore contradicting the claim of “100pc pure juice”. The CCP said it found the claim of “100pc pure juice” to be in prima facie violation of Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010 and it could not be justified based on the fact that the juice contained additives.

The Sunland Foods was required to refer to the order dated June 20, 2012 for Al-Hilal Industries for their product Fresher juice wherein the precedent had been set for the marketing of alleged 100pc pure juices without reasonable substantiation.

The Sunland Foods agreed to change their packaging and remove the claim.

Deceptive campaign

The CCP also took notice of the marketing campaign of Indus Motor Company Ltd. regarding comparison of used imported cars with new cars in which certain absolute claims had been made between the cars made by Toyota Pakistan and the used imported cars, which are the main rivals of local manufacturers.

The marketing campaign highlighted that ‘Engine not suited for Pakistani fuel’, ‘Suspension not durable for Pakistani roads’, ‘Tampered meter’, ‘Dented/painted body’, ‘Expensive spare parts’.

The CCP directed the company to substantiate their claims as making absolute claims without reasonable justification or basis is prohibited under Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010.

Indus Motor Company, in its reply alleged that the information regarding the condition of cars, which was present on auction websites, was not available to the final consumer, so this marketing campaign was launched to educate consumers regarding the various aspects to consider when making a purchase decision.

They were able to substantiate three of their claims-“Parts not readily available”, “Expensive spare parts” and “Poor resale value” by presenting the results of a company survey that verified the aforementioned claims with data.

However, the other claims remained unsubstantiated owing to the fact that they had made generalisations based on standalone examples.

A meeting was held in this regard and following the meeting Indus Motors has submitted that they had opted to discontinue the advertisement campaign upon receipt of the CCP’s initial letter and further gave the assurance that they had duly noted the views of the Commission and will bear them in mind for future campaigns that the company may launch.