Portuguese-owned supermarkets fined for mislabelling foreign products as Polish

The Polish branch of international retailer Jerónimo Martins has been fined 60 million zloty (€13.2 million) by Poland’s consumer protection authority for mislabelling foreign products as Polish. The Portuguese-owned firm, however, accuses the agency of “discriminatory” behaviour against it.

“Reliable information about products is the basic obligation of a business owner and the inalienable right of the consumer,” said Tomasz Chróstny, president of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK), announcing the fine today.

“Consumers who wanted to buy Polish potatoes, tomatoes or apples were often misled,” he added. “These violations were systemic and long-lasting.”

The offences in question took place at stores in one of Poland’s largest supermarket chains, Biedronka, which has around 3,000 outlets across the country and has been owned by Jerónimo Martins since 1997.

Last year, UOKiK announced that it was investigating Biedronka after it was discovered that some of the firm’s stores mislabelled foreign produce as Polish-grown. This could “distort the purchasing decisions…[of] consumers guided by economic patriotism”, said Chróstny at the time.

During inspections conducted between late 2019 and early 2021 at 263 Biedronka stores, UOKiK found that 73 of them contained fruit and vegetables labelled with the wrong country of origin. In some of those stores, up to 20% of produce was mislabelled.

Among the items falsely identified as Polish were garlic from Spain, potatoes, onions and cabbage from France, and pears from the Netherlands.

“Consumers increasingly pay attention to the country of origin of products,” said Chróstny today. “Many people are driven by economic patriotism, because they want to support Polish producers. For others, transport is important, as it may affect the amount of pesticides used or the carbon footprint.”

UOKiK cited a survey by IPSOS from 2016 which found that 73% of Poles try to support the Polish economy with their consumer choices and that country of origin is the most important factor when they choose food.

“Therefore, true and reliable information about the country of origin of fruit and vegetables is essential to make an informed purchasing decision,” added UOKiK’s president. “In Biedronka stores, consumers were exposed to frequent misrepresentation in this matter, which is an unfair market practice.”

In theory, UOKiK could have fined Jerónimo Martins Polska (JMP) up to 10% of its annual turnover, which Gazeta Wyborcza estimated last year amounted to over 5 billion zloty. Today, UOKiK announced that the fine would be 60,096,307 zloty.

JMP has already stated that it will appeal against the decision, which it says is “disproportionate and discriminatory”. The firm claims that the number of infringements identified was “marginal”, decreased over time, and that even UOKiK admitted it is “one of the lowest on the Polish market”.

“The method of collecting evidence raises serious doubts as to the impartiality of UOKiK and confirms that the actions taken against our network are discriminatory,” said the firm in its statement.

“Although Biedronka records fewer infringements in product labelling than many competitors, we are the only company against which proceedings have been initiated,” it added. As well as appealing against the decision, JMP says that it is also considering suing UOKiK and the state treasury for damages.

Main image credit: Artur Andrzej/Wikimedia Commons (under public domain)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.