The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has described a $2.5 million fine imposed on supermarket giant Coles as sending a strong message to business.

Coles was found guilty last year of misleading consumers over claims its bread was freshly baked in stores.

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In fact, the bread was partly baked overseas months earlier, in countries such as Denmark, Ireland and Germany.

Despite that, for three years the supermarket had advertised its bread as "Freshly Baked In-Store", and "Baked Today, Sold Today".

This morning the Federal Court ordered the supermarket giant pay $2.5 million to the Commonwealth Government, plus costs to the ACCC.

In his judgement, Federal Court Chief Justice Allsop said: "Approximately 106 product lines were involved and a very significant quantity of those products were sold across 637 supermarkets in Australian states and territories."

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the ruling was a win for consumers and smaller competitors.

"This penalty sends a strong message to companies that they should not use broad phrases in promotions that are deliberately chosen to sell products to consumers but which are likely to mislead consumers," Mr Sims said.

"As the Chief Justice pointed out, it is important that sellers in the market recognise that consumers are entitled to reliable, truthful and accurate information.

"The ACCC took this action because it was concerned that Coles' "Baked Today, Sold Today" and "Freshly Baked In-Store" claims about its par-baked bread were likely to mislead consumers.

"The conduct also placed independently owned and franchised bakeries that entirely bake bread from scratch each day at a competitive disadvantage."

In a statement, Coles said it did not deliberately set out to mislead anybody, "but we accept that we could have done a better job in explaining how these products are made".

"Last year we changed our packaging and in-store signage to improve our message to customers," the statement said.

"We are proud of the quality of our bread, whether baked from scratch in-store or 'par baked' by our Australian suppliers and finished in our ovens."