Source: Radio New Zealand
Fonterra’s Anchor brand butter, showing the label claiming it is ‘100 percent New Zealand grass-fed’. Supplied/ Greenpeace
Greenpeace Aotearoa has won a lawsuit against dairy giant Fonterra’s brands business for misleading butter packaging it labelled “greenwashing”.
The activist group filed the lawsuit in September 2024 for logos featured on Fonterra Brands’ Anchor butter sold between December 2023 and April 2025 that said “100-percent New Zealand grass fed”.
But it argued the co-operative’s dairy cows were also fed imported supplementary feed like palm kernel expeller (PKE), produced in countries like Indonesia.
The use of the two phrases “100 percent New Zealand” and “grass-fed” in combination were found to be misleading and breached the Fair Trading Act 1986.
Fonterra will discontinue using the logo on its Anchor butter packaging, however the co-operative has sold its consumer brands business Mainland Group, that Anchor sits under, to French dairy giant Lactalis.
Greenpeace spokesperson Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn serving Fonterra with a lawsuit on 30 September, 2024. Supplied/ Greenpeace
Greenpeace spokesperson Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn said it was a win against corporate greenwashing.
“This admission from the world’s biggest dairy exporter is a win against corporate greenwash,” she said.
“It exposes the cynicism of Fonterra and its intensive dairy model: instead of ending its links to rainforest destruction, Fonterra just slapped a misleading label on its packaging and continued business as usual.”
She said New Zealanders were getting ripped off during a cost-of-living crisis.
“We’ve been paying at times upwards of $20 a kilo for butter, while also being misled about the quality of that butter.”
But a spokesman for Fonterra said it stood by its grass-fed claims.
“However, [Fonterra] recognises that the combined use of the two phrases would have been likely to mislead some consumers and has accepted this in the settlement with Greenpeace, the details of which are confidential.”
He said the co-op’s cows were 96 percent grass-fed, including grass, grass silage, hay and forage crops like legumes and brassicas.
The two parties settled outside court on Wednesday.
Greenpeace was a staunch opponent to the use of imported feed products due to its links to deforestation, such as in Southeast Asian rainforests.
“Most New Zealanders would be horrified to know that rainforests are being destroyed, with precious wildlife pushed to the brink of extinction, to grow cheap feed for Fonterra’s oversized dairy herd. And that’s likely why Fonterra tried to hide the truth.”
A worker at a palm plantation area in Indonesia’s Sumatra island. Palm kernel expeller (PKE) is a by-product of the palm oil industry. AFP
Deighton-O’Flynn said PKE was a dry, gravelly feed that originated from destroyed rainforests.
“The reality is Fonterra has only changed the label. It hasn’t changed its destructive practices. Instead of greenwash tactics, Fonterra should take action to phase out palm kernel on all of its farms.”
New Zealand imported around 2 million tonnes of PKE each year largely for the dairy industry.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
