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An Auckland alcohol importing company, alongside two employees, has copped more than $150,000 in fines for attempting to sell thousands of bottles of illegal liquor.
Ace Health Limited, together with managers Bosheng Wang (37) and Zhimin You (38), were sentenced on a total of seven charges under the Food Act 2014 in the Auckland District Court today.
The company was fined $108,000 while Wang and You were each fined $21,600 for supplying thousands of bottles of spirits that had the lot codes removed or interfered with.
Lot codes are unique, and laser-etched into the glass of the bottle or printed on the label.
They ensure traceability in the event of a product recall, and assured consumers the product contents were genuine and had not been changed in any way.
Lot codes removed from bottles. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand Food Safety deputy director general Vincent Arbuckle estimated the importers would have saved about 7 per cent of the cost to buy the compromised bottles.
"The importer stood to gain a significant profit by purchasing large quantities of illegal liquor at a discounted price," he said.
"In total 3916 non-compliant bottles with a wholesale value of about $278,000 were seized. The estimated retail value of these bottles was about $330,000.
"Label integrity matters and when businesses try to get around the rules, they are at best deceiving consumers, and at worst putting them at risk."
Testing by the Ministry of Primary Industries group found the bottles were genuine but Arbuckle said that didn't excuse the offending.
"Consumers deserve to know that the product they are consuming is safe and suitable and the lot numbers help provide that assurance. Also, if a recall was required, the lack of lot code would make it difficult for us to trace affected product.
"We take this type of offending seriously and will take action to ensure businesses do the right thing by consumers."
In 2014, the company and managers pleaded guilty to importing and possessing for sale or selling non-compliant liquor between January 1, 2017 and October 2, 2020.
Following a New Zealand Food Safety investigation in 2019, Ace Health Limited was found to have hundreds of bottles that either had no lot code or the lot code removed.
Further inquiries by New Zealand Food Safety and New Zealand Customs led to the interception of five containers imported by Ace Health Limited containing many bottles of liquor with no lot codes.
An aggravating feature of the offending was that the company had received a warning in 2017 about purchasing illegally marked liquor but continued dealing with non-compliant overseas suppliers.
As the liquor was non-compliant, it was destroyed.
