Fraudulent Aldi are selling Israeli grapefruit labeled: "Produce of Cyprus"
galway |
rights, freedoms and repression |
news report 
Monday March 16, 2009 14:16
by DunloT - Free Palestine Campaign
Cypriot Embassy orders Aldi to remove all references to Cyprus on the produce they misleadingly sell
For the past number of weeks, disreputable Aldi have been fraudently selling Israeli ruby red grapefruit labeled; Produce of Cyprus and this offence is being currently investigated by Environmental Health Officers from the Health Service Executive who are under contract to Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Further, it is reliably reported that the Cypriot ambassador to Ireland, Sotos A. Liassides has referred this matter back to his government for vigorous action and in the meantime has asked Aldi to remove all reference to Cyprus on the grapefruit labels, commenting that Aldi are "trying desperately to get rid of their (Israeli grapefruit) stock by presenting it as Cypriot."
Aldi have no wriggle room to weasel out of their fraudulency by claiming that the mislabeling was a genuine mistake by their packagers; PO Box 26, Atherstone, Warwickshire CV9 2SH as the Carmel (Agrexco) stickers on each individual grapefruit have been replaced with "Jaffa Red Grapefruit Sunrise" stickers with both sharing the same number (#4285), product number: 95-105MM, supplier code: 1430 x 05 and description: ruby red, only differing in the lot code: 1003 in the case of the grapefruit with the Carmel sticker and 1007 in the case of the fruit with the Jaffa sticker - Dunnes Stores sell ruby red grapefruit clearly marked as “Produce of Israel” with a Carmel Agrexco sticker on each individual fruit with the same number (#4285) as on the grapefruit that Aldi sell as Cypriot (see photos). The manager of the Aldi branch in the Galway retail Park, Headford Road was tackled on this last Saturday but choose to skulk away (see video).
Besides Aldi, The Body Shop in Shop Street was picketed last Saturday : Beyond the mockery of its boast that "We've never been afraid to champion the vulnerable and the disadvantaged, and we continue to campaign for social justice and human rights, L'Oreal Israel, subsidiary of Body Shop owner, the French cosmetics company, L'Oreal, closely colludes with the state of Israel in the expropriation and exploitation of Palestinian resources in the Occupied Territories, "L'Oreal Israel manufacturers a line of products using Dead Sea minerals under the name "Natural Sea Beauty" that is exported to 22 countries. It should be noted that one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While the entire shore and its resources are systematically closed to Palestinians by Israeli military occupation and apartheid practices, Israel exploits the Dead Sea for international tourism, mining and improving its image. Besides that, L'Oreal Israel has operated a factory in the Israeli town of Migdal Haemek on lands belonging to the ethnically-cleansed Palestinian village of al-Mujaydil whose original inhabitants are still denied the right to return to their homes. Like almost all other Jewish settlements built in the midst of Palestinian villages in the Galilee, inside Israel, Migdal Haemek discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel, denying them the right to buy, rent or live on any part of the town, simply because they are "non-Jews ... and L'Oreal awarded a $100,000 "lifetime achievement" award to a scientist at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science in July 2008. The Weizmann Institute, since its establishment, has been a major center for clandestine research and development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on behalf of Israel's military establishment with which it has close ties" http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10049.shtml
Whilst Woodie's DIY, Aldi, Marks & Spencer, Debenham's and The Body Shop were being picketed, a stall was manned in Shop Street for its duration (and further beyond to 7.30 PM), dispensing Boycott Israeli Goods information leaflets and gathering signatures for the IAWM petition calling on Eircom not to award a major contract to Israeli company Amdocs (see Related Link).
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Comments (14 of 14)
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Fair dues to the Cyrpriot Embassy. They said no to Dunnes Stores and then more and more followed on
Ire4land needs some moral standards and a foreign operator like selling grapefruit cheaply have renamed it is never acceptable.
Social and Ethical responsibility is a must.
Think this through, take up the paper today and look at the companies on our stock exchange
Where do the majority of bananas say come from?
What about cement?
Maybe even wine or silk.........we don't know.......but we should
Fair play to the Galway IPSC on their boycott actions and exposure of attempts by Aldi to circumvent the boycott of Israeli goods. Nice rendition of Dylan's song too (The Day When the Ship Comes in?) on the video.
Re the Cypriot Embassy, few countries are going to agree to have their exports hurt by association or confusion with another country under boycott -- even less so if they are significant competitors in the same markets.
I have found peppers in Tesco in Dublin being sold as "produce of Israel or Spain" and will be raising this with the Dublin branch of IPSC.
It seems clear that the boycott actions need to be stepped up a bit to be effective. Also, in reply to another correspondent on this issue, there's very few products in the the world that are ethically in the clear (not to mention environmentally). To be effective, a boycotting campaign must be quite selective.
This is a terrible endictment of Aldi with it's shoddy moral ethics shockingly highlighted in this excellent piece.
I dont know much about the law regarding such dealings but I would be very surprised if this isnt a prosecutable crime.
Can they be taken to the cleaners on this? If so, it's worth doing.
Given the oprobrium to which the zionist enclave is subjected everywhere and the growing sucess of the boycott campaign it's little wonder that Aldi had to resort to underhand tacticts in order to push the apartheid produce on unsuspecting Irish consumers.
Grapevine has it that an apology is in the offing - lets see what grovelling lies they produce.
But there's no excuse for consumers being conned like that in the first place - its easy to tell the stuff from apartheid israel - its the fruit with the finger gouges. terrible what some people do all the same.
Shunned Israeli fruit being sold as Cypriot
By Nathan Morley
ALDI ‘apologises unreservedly for this error to its customers and producers’
A LEADING German supermarket yesterday admitted to effectively misleading European consumers by selling re-labelled Israeli Grapefruit as a product of Cyprus before passing it on to the public.
It has been claimed the decision to pass off the Israeli fruit by the German ALDI chain came after a widespread boycott of Israeli goods in the aftermath of the Israel’s invasion into Gaza in December.
Since then, shoppers across Ireland especially, have been turning their backs on Israeli goods such as fruit, vegetables and electronics and it is thought that stockpiles of Israeli produce are rotting at supply depots.
One Irish consumer, in a letter to the Cyprus Mail said: “I for one will be boycotting all products from Cyprus until I can be assured that it is not in fact Israeli produce and I will be advising all others to do likewise. This is something which can do serious damage to citrus farmers in Cyprus.”
In a written statement sent directly to the Cyprus Mail last night, ALDI claimed that the gaff was down to a supplier packaging error and affected approximately 10 per cent of all grapefruit sold in their Irish branches.
“The grapefruit was incorrectly labeled as coming from Cyprus when it should have been labeled as coming from Israel. As soon as it became aware of the issue, ALDI corrected it, and all grapefruit now being sold is properly labeled,” the statement read.
It is understood that ALDI’S’s suppliers are Israeli.
The Cyprus Mail can also reveal that prior to the ALDI admission; the Cypriot Ambassador to Dublin sent an urgent report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the Ministry of Commerce about the situation.
“My report has been passed on to the relevant ministries in Nicosia, I am fully informed about the grapefruit situation,” Ambassador Sotos A. Liassides told the Mail.
Irish Ambassador Tom Brady said yesterday he was unaware of the situation, and had not as yet, anyway, been contacted by the Cypriot authorities.
The revelations about the re-labeling were first made by consumer Tommy Donlan, who told the Cyprus Mail that the manager of an ALDI store in Galway completely ignored him when confronted about the suspicious fruit.
“They are portraying the product as something it is not. The con is quite brazen, in some cases they didn’t even bother to take the Israeli stickers or code numbers from the packaging, the colour is different, it’s all pretty shabby really.”
Donlan took a series of photographs of the grapefruit, which show packages labeled ‘Cyprus Products’ remarkably still had tiny circular stickers on the exterior of the fruit marked ‘Carmel’- a citrus region of Israel.
“Mangers at four ALDI stores told me they were no longer selling Israeli produce, they lied,” he added.
Donlan also dismissed ALDI’s statement of a packaging error as “utter rubbish”.
“This is just another PR creative exercise with the truth; it’s a barefaced lie to put it mildly. ALDI knew what they were doing and that is trying to shift unwanted Israeli stock as being from Cyprus.”
The ALDI error will be viewed dimly by the EU, whose strict food labeling laws are designed to inform purchasers of the properties, origin, ingredients, nature and characteristics of the food they buy and that labelling should not mislead consumers.
The EU stresses that the information contained on food labels must not make misleading or false claims.
ALDI said in their statement to the Mail they would be taking action to ensure such an occurrence was not repeated.
“ALDI apologises unreservedly for this error to its customers and producers. It is company policy that all produce sold has its country of origin correctly labelled. This is the responsibility of suppliers to ALDI and they are fully aware of their obligations in this regard. ALDI has taken steps to ensure this does not happen again.
Environmental Health Officers from the Health Service Executive who are under contract to Food Safety Authority of Ireland are also said to have become involved in the issue, but were unavailable for comment yesterday.
It is understood that some members of farming unions in Cyprus are furious about the claims and have been seeking clarification from the Ministry of Agriculture in Nicosia.
Cyprus grapefruit, despite being low in production, is regarded as among the best in the world. It has a high juice and sugar content which is a result of virtually perfect growing conditions.
PHOTO: An Israeli Carmel sticker still clearly visible underneath the plastic label marked ‘Produce of Cyprus’.
From the above article : " It is understood that ALDI’S’s suppliers are Israeli. "
Shouldnt Aldi just be boycotted across the board If this is the case ?
"It happened in Ireland, whose terrorists trained along with Hezbullah. And Cyprus - which gets more than its share of Israeli tourists is complaining about it"
Following the outing of Aldi's fraudulent mislabeling of Israeli grapefruit as "Produce of Cyprus" on Indymedia (Related Link) and further publicising on the Cyprus Mail, Famagusta Gazzette, Scoop and Fresh Plaza, keeper of the Zionist flame, Israel Matsav was in censorious peevish mode : "Now this is rich. A German supermarket. It happened in Ireland, whose terrorists trained along with Hezbullah. And Cyprus - which gets more than its share of Israeli tourists is complaining about it. Notice how they don't boycott cell phones or Intel. "
As individual articles on the Cyprus Mail don't have URL's, courtesy of Israel Matsav, below is the relevant article from last Thursday's edition:
A LEADING German supermarket yesterday admitted to effectively misleading European consumers by selling re-labelled Israeli Grapefruit as a product of Cyprus before passing it on to the public.
It has been claimed the decision to pass off the Israeli fruit by the German ALDI chain came after a widespread boycott of Israeli goods in the aftermath of the Israel’s invasion into Gaza in December.
Since then, shoppers across Ireland especially, have been turning their backs on Israeli goods such as fruit, vegetables and electronics and it is thought that stockpiles of Israeli produce are rotting at supply depots.
One Irish consumer, in a letter to the Cyprus Mail said: “I for one will be boycotting all products from Cyprus until I can be assured that it is not in fact Israeli produce and I will be advising all others to do likewise. This is something which can do serious damage to citrus farmers in Cyprus.”
In a written statement sent directly to the Cyprus Mail last night, ALDI claimed that the gaff was down to a supplier packaging error and affected approximately 10 per cent of all grapefruit sold in their Irish branches.
“The grapefruit was incorrectly labeled as coming from Cyprus when it should have been labeled as coming from Israel. As soon as it became aware of the issue, ALDI corrected it, and all grapefruit now being sold is properly labeled,” the statement read.
It is understood that ALDI’S’s suppliers are Israeli.
The Cyprus Mail can also reveal that prior to the ALDI admission; the Cypriot Ambassador to Dublin sent an urgent report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the Ministry of Commerce about the situation.
“My report has been passed on to the relevant ministries in Nicosia, I am fully informed about the grapefruit situation,” Ambassador Sotos A. Liassides told the Mail.
Irish Ambassador Tom Brady said yesterday he was unaware of the situation, and had not as yet, anyway, been contacted by the Cypriot authorities.
The revelations about the re-labeling were first made by consumer Tommy Donlan, who told the Cyprus Mail that the manager of an ALDI store in Galway completely ignored him when confronted about the suspicious fruit.
“They are portraying the product as something it is not. The con is quite brazen, in some cases they didn’t even bother to take the Israeli stickers or code numbers from the packaging, the colour is different, it’s all pretty shabby really.”
Donlan took a series of photographs of the grapefruit, which show packages labeled ‘Cyprus Products’ remarkably still had tiny circular stickers on the exterior of the fruit marked ‘Carmel’- a citrus region of Israel.
“Mangers at four ALDI stores told me they were no longer selling Israeli produce, they lied,” he added.
Donlan also dismissed ALDI’s statement of a packaging error as “utter rubbish”.
“This is just another PR creative exercise with the truth; it’s a barefaced lie to put it mildly. ALDI knew what they were doing and that is trying to shift unwanted Israeli stock as being from Cyprus.”
The ALDI error will be viewed dimly by the EU, whose strict food labeling laws are designed to inform purchasers of the properties, origin, ingredients, nature and characteristics of the food they buy and that labelling should not mislead consumers.
The EU stresses that the information contained on food labels must not make misleading or false claims.
ALDI said in their statement to the Mail they would be taking action to ensure such an occurrence was not repeated.
“ALDI apologises unreservedly for this error to its customers and producers. It is company policy that all produce sold has its country of origin correctly labelled. This is the responsibility of suppliers to ALDI and they are fully aware of their obligations in this regard. ALDI has taken steps to ensure this does not happen again.
Environmental Health Officers from the Health Service Executive who are under contract to Food Safety Authority of Ireland are also said to have become involved in the issue, but were unavailable for comment yesterday.
It is understood that some members of farming unions in Cyprus are furious about the claims and have been seeking clarification from the Ministry of Agriculture in Nicosia. (end of article).
"ALDI has taken steps to ensure this does not happen again" : unfortunately, the "steps" taken by villainous Aldi were further obfuscatory ones - the giveaway Carmel stickers on the grapefruit were removed and replaced with new ones,"Jaffa Sunrise Red." As such, yesterday, whilst three Galway Free Palestine Campaign activists manned a Boycott information stall in Shop Street another seven in full hue and cry picketed Aldi in the Galway Shopping Center, Headford Road (See video).
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=40192
http://www.famagusta-gazette.com/default.asp?sourceid=&...=.com
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0903/S00382.htm
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/
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Well spotted Tommy and all. Fair play to yee! I would like to ask Mayo shoppers to check in there local Aldi branch in Castlebar to see if this is happening there to.
UPDATE. 03/04/2009
Cyprus Mail Newspaper
03/04/09
Cyprus checking out Israeli fruit con
By Nathan Morley
COMMERCE Minister Antonis Paschalides is looking into a humiliating blunder by a leading EU supermarket chain after it sold tons of Israeli fruit as ”Produce of Cyprus”, he said yesterday.
German-owned Aldi were left red-faced when they admitted to the Cyprus Mail that they had effectively misled thousands of Irish consumers by falsely labeling Israeli grapefruit as Cypriot produce.
Paschalides said yesterday he was looking into a report prepared by the Cyprus Embassy in Dublin about the deception.
Some Irish consumers even said they would boycott Cyprus produce until they knew it was genuinely Cypriot. The prospect could be damaging for Cypriot citrus growers.
“I have heard about this and have received the reports which I will study and am looking into the matter. I take these reports very seriously and will act accordingly,” Paschalides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
In a new twist yesterday, a photo was sent through from Ireland showing a box of ‘easy peelers’ pink grapefruit on sale at Irish supermarket giant Dunnes Stores. The label under the box says ‘Cyprus’ but the individual fruit have Jaffa stickers on them, which clearly identifies them Israeli produce.
A spokesman at Dunnes Stores yesterday told the Cyprus Mail there was no one there to comment.
Sotos A. Liassides, the Cypriot Ambassador to Dublin, told the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday that the Aldi ‘blunder’ had been corrected, but added that he would be keeping a close eye on the situation.
“Yes they have removed it. This has also been confirmed by my sources. The good news is that you can find genuine Cypriot grapefruit at shops such as Tesco, and you will see the colour is a little more yellow, and of course it is not marked Jaffa,” he said.
On learning of the Aldi blunder, Liassides sent an urgent report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the Ministry of Commerce in Nicosia.
The EU states that the control of correct labelling is the task of member states' national control authorities such as food inspection bodies or market surveillance authorities.
Aldi apologised to its customers two weeks ago after Irish shoppers uncovered the scam, which Aldi called a ‘packaging error’. The chain blamed the supplier, who is understood to be in Israeli company.
One such consumer, Tommy Donlan, took a series of photographs of the grapefruit, which showed those packages labelled ‘Cyprus Produce’ still had tiny circular stickers on the exterior of the fruit marked ‘Carmel’- a citrus region of Israel.
“Aldi knew what they were doing and that is trying to shift unwanted Israeli stock as being from Cyprus,” Donlan said.
The decision to pass off the Israeli fruit as Cypriot appears to have come after a widespread boycott of Israeli goods in the aftermath of Israel’s invasion into Gaza in December.
Since then, shoppers across Ireland especially, have been turning their backs on Israeli products such as fruit, vegetables and electronics.
Reports in the Israeli press this week said some 20 per cent of the country’s exports had been affected by the boycott
Supervalu are also engaged in this practice. Their store in Killester sell potatoes that are marked Israel on the packaging yet Supervalu advertise them as coming from the UK. They also claim that Jaffa and Carmel (two leading Israeli brands) come from South Africa. I have been in touch with the National Consumer Agency about this, I don't know what kind of outcome that will have. Perhaps if enough people make some noise about this it will force them to change??
It saddens me that the Elected Representatives of a people who have suffered so much abuse over many centuries, especially in the middle period of the 20th Century, could continue to abuse their neighbours to the same degree to which they quite rightly pleaded to an unhearing world for relief.
Brian A Comiskey
Neither Palestinian nor Irish lives matter in Ireland when there's a buck to make. A Sunday Independent story today, March 7th, reports that an Israeli firm is up for a contract with many millions to supply the Irish Army . . . .with bullets. The firm, owned by the Israeli government, is called Israel Military Industries. The decision on who wins the contract will be taken by Brian Cowen. So our government shows once again that we thick Paddies can prostitute themselves before Israel even when Israel puts our lives at risk by using dodgy Irish passports to commit murder. There could be a fair case to say that Ireland is now complicit in the murder.
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