Swedish grocers selling 'Spanish' fruit from Israel
Stores from two separate grocery chains in Sweden have changed the country of origin displays for fruit imported from Israel.
Lidl stores in Malmö and Gothenburg have sold Israeli persimmons shown as having come from Spain, writes the Metro newspaper.
And shelves at an Ica shop in Malmö display avocados that reportedly come from Kenya, while a closer look at the packaging shows they in fact imported from Israel.
Signs at another Ica store in Stockholm proclaim the shop’s avocados hail from Spain, even through the crates from which they are unpacked say Israel.
The head of Lidl in Sweden, Mathias Kivikoski, wrote in an email to Metro that the mix-up is a result of problems with the store's internal procedures.
And quality control manager Mats Ovegård from Ica said that it’s merely a coincidence that signs for fruit from Israel were wrong.
“The problem is that stores are poor at recognizing that they receive some of their orders from different countries and forget to change the signs. It’s regrettable, since the consumers themselves should be able to choose for themselves which country’s products they want or do not want to buy,” he told the paper.
Kristina Mattsson from the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket), tells Metro her agency plans to investigate the faulty labeling as soon as possible.
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Lidl stores in Malmö and Gothenburg have sold Israeli persimmons shown as having come from Spain, writes the Metro newspaper.
And shelves at an Ica shop in Malmö display avocados that reportedly come from Kenya, while a closer look at the packaging shows they in fact imported from Israel.
Signs at another Ica store in Stockholm proclaim the shop’s avocados hail from Spain, even through the crates from which they are unpacked say Israel.
The head of Lidl in Sweden, Mathias Kivikoski, wrote in an email to Metro that the mix-up is a result of problems with the store's internal procedures.
And quality control manager Mats Ovegård from Ica said that it’s merely a coincidence that signs for fruit from Israel were wrong.
“The problem is that stores are poor at recognizing that they receive some of their orders from different countries and forget to change the signs. It’s regrettable, since the consumers themselves should be able to choose for themselves which country’s products they want or do not want to buy,” he told the paper.
Kristina Mattsson from the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket), tells Metro her agency plans to investigate the faulty labeling as soon as possible.
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