An egg farmer who admitted duping consumers by passing off caged eggs as free range claimed the practice is widespread.
John Garnett was sentenced in the Whangarei District Court yesterday after he admitted to the Commerce Commission that his company packaged about 206,000 dozen - 2.4 million - caged eggs into different packages over 20 months that earned him an additional $376,000.
In sentencing the former director of Forest Hill Farm at Waikaraka to 12 months home detention and 200 hours community work, Judge Duncan Harvey noted what he described as a "disturbing comment" by Garnett that such conduct was common in the egg industry.
The Northern Advocate has learned that there are no regulations that control the definition of a free range egg, and consumers are reliant on the honesty of egg farmers to identify eggs correctly.
Between April 2010 and November 2011, Garnett was responsible for packaging cage eggs into cartons labelled as "free range" or "barn-laid". They sold them to 38 retailers, including supermarkets in Northland and Auckland, which led to about 200,000 people buying what they thought were free range eggs.