OLIVE OIL WRONGLY LABELLED

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 4

OLIVE OIL WRONGLY LABELLED

Sanctions Repercussion In tiie defence of a vendor charged with selling food in a package wrongly labelled, the circumstances which had led to the offence were traced by counsel to repercussions of Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, and the imposition of sanctions by the European powers. The case was one in which, charged under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act with retailing olive oil in bottles bearing a misleading name and address, James J. McMahon was fined £2 and costs by Mr. \V. F. Stilwell. S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, YVellington, yesterday. Senior-Sergeant J. Dempsey, who prosecuted, said that the quality of olive oil apparently depended on the stage at which it was expressed from the fruit. As a result of tiie first pressing, oil of the highest grade was obtained. This was known as oil of tiie first “verge.” Extra pressure after this bad been drawn off produced sec-ond-grade oil. The final process of extraction, by steam, produced inferior oil. He submitted that the oil sold by defendant was labelled to indicate that it was absolutely of .ho finest quality, which it was not. The defence was that, owing to tiie trouble with Italy, supplies of olive oil were difficult to obtain from that country. Defendant had liouglit two drums of olive oil from a local man. believing them to be of good quality lie had since withdrawn tiie oil from sale. The breach of the regulations was an innocent one.