00:02We tested everyday products such as spices, eggs, alcohol, processed tomatoes and in every
00:11category we looked at there was a problem which really shocked us.
00:16We knew that there was food fraud going on in Australia, it's going on globally around
00:22the world because our supply chains are so interconnected that companies don't really
00:27know what's going on in their supply chains.
00:30They think they do but sometimes they don't.
00:34So how was this testing conducted and really why?
00:38Was it suspected that these foods were from an origin other than what the label said?
00:43Yeah so when we went into this we had no idea what the results were going to show.
00:49So we looked at 39 tomato brands, tomato paste, passata, diced tomatoes.
00:57We tested over 220 products and found one in four failed the test for origin.
01:05So some of them were claiming that they were Australian grown or they were grown in Italy
01:09and it turned out that they were actually grown in China.
01:13And we used a forensic lab called Source Certain which is globally renowned.
01:20They're used by world authorities such as the FBI, Scotland Yard, the AFP, Interpol and this
01:28is what they specialise in.
01:31And mislabelling, I mean that's a problem in and of itself but the fact that many of these
01:35products came from the Xinjiang region takes on a greater significance.
01:38Tell us about that.
01:39It does.
01:40So Xinjiang is internationally known to use forced labour.
01:45So in 2021 the United States actually banned any products coming from Xinjiang because they
01:51thought it was too high risk to have this forced labour coming into their products because it's
01:58not a level playing field for local producers who are trying to do the right thing, trying
02:03to pay the right wages.
02:05How can they possibly compete when one of the biggest imports costs is wages?
02:11And so if you're paying, underpaying your workers, you can sell the product at a cheaper
02:15price.
02:17Now with this investigation Adele, we know there were Coles and Aldi products on there.
02:21They have rejected the results here and as you outlined just earlier, this is a global
02:26supply chain here.
02:27How difficult is it to pinpoint where the problem lies along that chain?
02:33It is.
02:33It's very difficult to pinpoint because there are a lot of, in any product there's a lot
02:38of different suppliers often and there might be ingredients coming from different parts
02:43of the world and at any stage they can be intercepted and either adulterated or chained.
02:51Expiry dates can be removed and changed to make them look like they're fresher than what
02:56they are.
02:57There's so many ways that the supply chain can be intercepted and this is what we're finding.
03:04As you said at the top there, there's a number of products that were tested.
03:08Scientists uncovered methanol above the legal limit being sold, the legal limit of alcohol
03:12I should say, being sold in Australian bottle shops.
03:15Tell us about that as part of this investigation.
03:19Yeah, so this was really shocking to us.
03:22We got six spirits, two brands, we went to independent liquor stores to buy them and had
03:29them tested and they all tested positive for methanol above the legal limit.
03:35Some of them were actually up to eight times or nine times higher than the legal limit.
03:40And methanol is very difficult for humans to consume.
03:44In Laos in 2024, two Australians died from methanol poisoning.
03:50So it's really significant finding.
03:53And so what's the overall takeout from your investigation?
03:57How should consumers be viewing this?
04:00Yeah, the overall takeout really is that consumers are being duped.
04:05They're paying for something that they're not getting.
04:07They trust the labels, they trust the brands, they trust the shops that they're going into.
04:13They don't have the time to read these labels and sometimes they're not getting what they
04:17pay for.
04:18And they think that there is a regulator that is actually looking at this.
04:22And what we found was that the regulators in Australia are really good at testing for
04:28safety to make sure that contaminations or airborne illnesses are not present.
04:35But they tend to be not paying enough attention to food fraud, unlike some other countries
04:40like the UK and countries in Europe, where they have dedicated food fraud units which go
04:46out, test these products, catching criminals.
04:51And it's really having an impact.
04:54Del Ferguson in Sydney.
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