The affected supermarkets in Sutton Coldfield and Hastings were found to have been selling counterfeit Yellow Tail and Blossom Hill wines. One store had its liquor licence suspended for three months, and the other store had its liquor licence revoked as a result. It is not known whether the stores had knowingly purchased the counterfeit wine or whether they too had fallen victim to food fraud as there were traceability issues affecting the investigations.
Counterfeit goods, particularly food and beverage products, can have a profound impact on consumer trust and brand value. Consumers may reject brands caught up in counterfeiting through fear of ill-health, allergic reaction and in rare cases, death. The Consumer Goods Forum has recently reported that 39% of consumers would no longer trust brands with fake products.
What can your business do to protect its brand from counterfeiters?
- Ensure the security of your manufacturing processes – from recipes to label designs you need to be sure that all such information is kept confidential. This may mean restricting those employees who can access such information (coupled with heightened confidentiality clauses in their contracts) and ensuring that security of data storage and IT systems is both robust and up to date.
- Consider whether your products can be improved, in order to make it harder to imitate. For example, could wine bottles be issued with bar codes, watermarks or seals to indicate a genuine product.
- Ensure all intellectual property rights relating to your brand and products are properly registered and protected so that the appropriate enforcement action can be taken where such rights are infringed by counterfeit goods. Check supply and distribution channels to ensure that those partnerships are operating to your own standards of ethics and integrity.
- Gain employees’ trust and loyalty by setting standards internally, acting with integrity at all levels of the business and rewarding ethical behaviours. Much of this is about creating the right culture. Your employees are your eyes and ears, and therefore employee morale and engagement is hugely important in protecting your brand and reputation if you have employees who are committed to your business.
- Act quickly if counterfeiting is discovered. Swift legal action is important to protect brand and retain consumer confidence. Communicate clearly with consumers with information on where the counterfeit goods have been sold, how to differentiate between the counterfeit product and your genuine product and what action you are taking.
To learn more about how Tenet can support your business prevent and detect fraud please get in touch at hello@tenetlaw.co.uk
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The Secret Ingredient is our dedicated food and drink quarterly newsletter. Each publication supports in-house counsel and those from a science background assessing food safety to keep up to date with current and emerging fraud-related risks. Catch up on previous issues below and subscribe here to receive quarterly updates direct to your inbox.