Coles has once again been rapped for misleading the public in its advertising, this time falling foul of the Ad Standards Board (ASB) for a TV spot promoting Tasmanian fresh apples.

The ruling from the ad watchdog follows the Federal Court ruling that claims around the retailers bread products of being “baked today” were false, misleading and deceptive.

The spot in question sees brand ambassador Curtis Stone asking what is fresh at Coles, with the retail spot promoting a special on Tasmanian Pink Lady Apples.

A complaint to the ASB argued the ad was wrong, adding: “I live in Tassie and my apple tree is dormant! These apples would have been in storage for MONTHS, they are not fresh.”

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While Coles said they would not re-publish or re-broadcast the ad in question, the supermarket giant said it was satisfied the ad was not misleading, highlighting the harvesting period of Australian apples and when Coles would have sourced the Pink Lady variety featured in the ad.

“Coles sources the bulk of its apples from Tasmania, and the pink lady variety featured in the advertisement were harvested this year in Tasmania in the last half of April,” Coles told the ASB.

“During the period of harvest Coles sells the harvested apples that have been delivered directly to its stores. For the remaining ten months of the year, Coles could choose to source apples from outside of Australia to fulfil year round customer demand for apples, however it chooses to support local growers by only selling in Coles stores Australian apples grown by local growers. ”

Coles explained its able to deliver a “fresh apple” outside of the harvesting period due to the “availability of advanced cold storage facilities”, which Coles argued allowed the apples to remain fresh.

“‘Freshness’ is determined with regard to the quality of the produce, not whether it has been stored or not,” Coles argued.

While the majority of the board considered that a reasonable consumer understands that cold storage for a period of time still results in a ‘fresh’ product, the reference to “Spring fruit” in the ad changes the context of the word ‘fresh’ to imply that the advertised apples are Spring fruit and have been freshly picked.

As the apples are generally harvested in Australia during Autumn, the board ruled that the likely interpretation of the ad by the average consumer would be that the Tasmanian apples being promoted as fresh this Spring would have been freshly picked in recent weeks. Consequently the complaint was upheld.

Miranda Ward