Why your 'New Zealand' bacon might not be from New Zealand

The Government has admitted that some pork labels in supermarkets may be misleading shoppers but has decided not to change the law to fix it.

Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Cameron Brewer said he had not seen proof that misleading pork labels were common enough to justify new rules. He said if NZPork — the group representing New Zealand pig farmers — had a problem with how pork products were labelled, it should complain to the Commerce Commission, which enforces fair trading laws, RNZ reported on 8 September 2026.

Brewer pointed to his Fair Trading Amendment Bill, which he said would increase the penalties for misleading consumers. The current law, the Fair Trading Act, already bans misleading conduct in business. His change would make the punishment tougher, but would not change what the law actually covers.

NZPork chief executive Brent Kleiss told RNZ that some supermarket pork products have very small writing on the back of the packet saying the pig was bred overseas, while the front of the packaging makes it look like a New Zealand product. He said he visited a PAK'nSAVE in Christchurch that had no New Zealand bred and processed pork products, such as ham and bacon, on the shelf at all.

Kleiss said a group of MPs recommended three years ago that the Government look at making pork labels clearer. He said nothing has happened since. The Regulations Review Committee made recommendations in 2023 to stop products from being misleading about where they come from, and the Government said it noted the recommendation, according to the committee report.

Kleiss was blunt about the minister's response. He said the minister may have been given wrong information or simply decided to move on rather than deal with the problem.

Foodstuffs, which runs PAK'nSAVE and New World supermarkets, said it supported customers having clear and accurate information about what they bought, including where it came from, in line with labelling rules, RNZ reported.

The rules around food labels are built up in layers. New Zealand made country-of-origin labelling mandatory for fresh or thawed food on 12 February 2022 and for other products on 12 May 2023, according to Horticulture NZ. The rules cover fresh or frozen fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and seafood, as The Spinoff reported in 2018. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) publishes guidance on the rules through its consumer protection materials, noting the Regulations set out the specific labelling requirements.

NZPork has long argued that the current system does not make sure consumers get accurate information about where their pork comes from. The group says shoppers might be misled by labels like "Made in New Zealand" or "Locally Made" when the product actually contains imported pork, according to its website. NZPork has also said that clear labels let shoppers make informed choices, stating in July 2023 that the parliamentary committee's recommendation was a step in the right direction.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) publishes labelling requirements for meat and meat products including poultry, covering offal and processed products, on its website. The ministry says most food for sale in New Zealand must be labelled and provides a form to report food labelling issues, directing country-of-origin complaints to the Commerce Commission.

Part of the problem is that two different agencies are responsible for different parts of this. MPI looks after general food labelling, but disputes about where a product comes from are handled by the Commerce Commission under the Fair Trading Act. That is the same agency Brewer told NZPork to complain to, instead of creating new rules specifically for pork.

The broader context here is that this dispute sits between two sets of rules that were never designed to work together. One set, the Consumer Information Standards, says what information must go on packaging. The other, the Fair Trading Act, bans businesses from misleading people. NZPork's point is that a product can follow the labelling rules to the letter and still mislead shoppers — for example, big "Made in New Zealand" writing on the front of a packet with the actual country of origin in tiny print on the back.

Brewer's stance treats that as an enforcement problem under the existing law rather than a gap that needs new rules. That is a reasonable position if the scale of misleading practice is, as he says, not proven. But the lack of evidence works both ways. No proper investigation has been done to find out how widespread the problem is, and the committee's 2023 recommendation for clearer labelling has sat unanswered for three years. Kleiss's frustration is with that inaction as much as with the decision itself.

For anyone who follows politics, the pattern is familiar: a committee of MPs finds a problem, the Government says it will look into it, and nothing happens until the issue comes back up. Brewer's bill may increase penalties for misleading conduct, but it does not answer the question NZPork is asking — whether the current labelling rules are good enough to stop shoppers being misled about where their pork comes from. That question is still open.