Food industry players among Shonky Award “winners”
Choice has today announced the winners of the Shonky Awards, with Aldi and Uncle Tobys among those in the consumer group’s sights.
Eight awards were announced at the NSW Art Gallery, with Uncle Tobys “recognised for reducing the size of their Oat Crisp Honey cereal packets by 14% but making the new container appear almost identical in size”, according to Choice. Uncle Tobys claimed to have reduced the recommended retail price by six per cent to keep their product ‘affordable’ but the unit cost per 100 grams rose by 10 per cent, the consumer group added.
Two liquid chicken stocks – Aldi’s Chefs’ Cupboard and Massell liquid stocks – were given a joint shonky award, shaped as a lemon, both for being made up of flavours instead of animal products and being reconstituted from stock powders – just like the much cheaper stock cube alternative.”The Shonky Awards highlight what is frankly ridiculous about some of the worst examples of sub-standard products and services Choice reviews each year,” Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn said. “While the winners might be cringing in the boardrooms we want consumers to enjoy a good laugh and be more demanding before accepting tricky labelling, bogus fees and charges and worthless devices.”
Other ‘winners’ were Qantas for their credit card surcharge of $7.70, L’Oreal for “dubious statistics” in promoting their Elvive hair care products, the Reegen Micro Plug, Tel Pacific pre-paid phone cards and the Tiffany FP 807 Food processor.
