Company fined $9,000 for fraudulent labelling of canned fried fish

A company, Skytime HupKee Foodstuff Pte Ltd, was fined $9,000 in court yesterday (Nov 14) for selling falsely labelled cans of fried dace with salted black beans.

In December 2017, the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) received feedback that Skytime HupKee Foodstuff was suspected to have sold canned fried dace with salted black beans that were affixed with false labels under a brand named ‘LRB’.

Subsequent investigations revealed that since 2015, Skytime HupKee Foodstuff had been replacing the label of a different brand of canned fried dace with salted black beans with the ‘LRB’ label.

The false labels were also found to contain inaccurate information, including the ingredient listing and manufacturer’s details.

The AVA have said that they take a serious view on false and inaccurate labelling of food.

As accurate labelling is important to ensure that the source of the food product can be easily traced in the event of food safety issues, all prepackaged food products for sale in Singapore must be labelled according to the general labelling requirements of the Singapore Food Regulations

Under the Wholesome Meat and Fish Act, any person who commits the offence is liable to a maximum fine of $50,000 and/or a two-year jail term for the first conviction.

In the case of a second or subsequent conviction, the offender is liable to a fine of up to $100,000 and/or a jail term of up to three years.