I had a craving the other day for tinned rice pudding. On my British OE I used to eat a lot of it as it was really cheap and you can eat it right out of a tin without cooking it. I picked up a tin of Aunt Betty’s rice pudding at the supermarket to find it is made in Thailand from Thai rice and New Zealand milk. Aunt Betty’s is owned by The Old Fashioned Food Group who have product labels such as Hansells, VitaFresh, Real Yogurt etc. On their website it states it has three manufacturing sites – Penrose, New Lynn and Masterton. I don’t see Thailand on that list? So I emailed them to find out why they are implying that their products are made in New Zealand as opposed to overseas.
Today I promptly got a reply from The Old Fashioned Food Group saying that those three NZ sites were the sites they owned and their website would be adjusted in view of receiving my email. Sure enough their website now states “A majority of our products are manufactured at our 3 sites across NZ ……. and the remainder sourced from third parties throughout the world”.
OK it’s not exactly front page news but it’s my first triumph as an informed consumer!