Consumers' group blasts ready-made feast label practices

While the ready-to-eat Lunar New Year's feasts have become increasingly popular, up to 94 percent of their catalogs failed to provide a clear indication of nutrition information for consumer reference, the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) said yesterday.

"Most vendors did not include enough or clear nutrition information as well as other relevant information in the catalogs," Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏), the foundation's secretary-general, said at a press conference yesterday.

Worried that insufficient information could lead people to purchase unsuitable products, the foundation last month undertook a survey of the 32 kinds of ready-to-eat Lunar New Year feasts sold through the nation's convenience stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets.

The foundation found that up to 94 percent of the catalogs, except the ones provided by RT-Mart (大潤發) hypermarket chain, did not include nutrition information, while 88 percent also did not illustrate the proper method of heating the meals prior to serving.

Around 69 percent of the catalogs, including Carrefour's and Far Eastern Geant's (愛買吉安), lack clear descriptions of the ingredients used in the meals -- or the amounts used -- while 19 percent did not indicate the recommended serving size.

"Aside from the color advertisements with photos of the feasts -- as shown at the foundation's press conference -- we do provide customers with A4-sized leaflets with a written description of each dish in black ink, containing information about ingredients, nutrition and methods of preparation," a Geant official said in response to the foundation's statements.

In addition to requiring clearer nutritional information, consumers should also consider the price when purchasing the feasts. The price of the most expensive feast included in the survey was 5.6 times the cheapest one, according to the foundation.

"The Lunar New Year feasts provided by United Hotel (國聯飯店) cost NT$12,000 per set, which is not a reasonable price for a take-away feast, because shoppers are not using any of the hotel's services or admiring its decorations," Cheng said.

The hotel defended itself, saying the high price had been set to reflect the cost of the gift baskets used to contain the feasts, which have a limited quantity of 30 sets.

"We invited two graffiti artists to hand-paint monkey patterns on the baskets for our New Year feasts that can become collector's items. It was this which raised the price of the ready-made feasts," said Joanne Hsieh (謝蓓瓊), the hotel's marketing manager.

Cheng said the foundation last year received around 50 consumer complaints regarding the ready-to-eat Lunar New Year feasts. The complaints were primarily about late delivery, or the failure of the vendor to deliver the meal and only notifying the customer of the cancellation a short time prior to dinner.

"Vendors should notify customers of a cancellation a minimum of two days prior and compensate customers with alternatives, like a restaurant booking," Cheng said.

"If the vendors deliberately accept orders that exceed their capacity, after knowing that they lack the necessary cooking materials, consumers can ask for punitive damages triple their financial losses, aside from conventional compensation," he added.