Supermarket giant Coles has been convicted of two criminal offences in a Queensland court over an ‘isolated incident’ involving faulty weighing equipment and inaccurate meat packaging.
The supermarket pled guilty on 15 January to offences under national measurement law, which ensures that consumers get everything they pay for.
The offences were strict liability, which meant the magistrate had no choice but to impose a criminal conviction regardless of whether or not the crimes committed at the supermarket’s Coolum outlet were accidental.
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The charges stemmed from a routine inspection in July 2013 by officers of the National Measurement Institute (NMI), which enforces the highly technical area of measurement law.
NMI officers found a weighing instrument in the butchery area of a Coles supermarket in Coolum that was reading a weight of 0.032kg even when there was no meat sitting on the machine. The officers also discovered seven pre-packaged rump steaks in a refrigerated display cabinet that weighed less than their packaging stated.
Coles pled guilty to two offences in the Maroochydore Magistrates Court — one relating to the faulty weighing machine and the other relating to the incorrectly packaged steaks — and was fined a total of $3,000 and ordered to pay legal costs.
Corporations like Coles are deemed to be persons in the eyes of the law and can be convicted of some crimes just like people, although more extreme penalties like prison time are obviously impossible.
The maximum fine Magistrate CJ Taylor could have imposed in this case was $13,600. The magistrate chose a fine only a fifth of the maximum in keeping with the lesser severity of the offending and the fact that Coles lacks a criminal history (although it did plead guilty to selling products past their use-by-date in Adelaide last year).
A Coles spokesperson issued a statement to The New Daily saying the supermarket takes “very seriously” its responsibility to accurately package its groceries, and noted that the case in question was an extremely isolated incident.
“This case involves a single store on a single day on one product on one piece of equipment,” read the statement.
“The issue was quickly corrected and no wrongly-labelled items were sold to customers.”
This has not been the only recent legal woe for the supermarket, which is owned by Perth-based conglomerate Wesfarmers.
In December last year, Coles was fined almost $12 million after admitting to having “crossed the line” by making threats and demands for money from suppliers.
