Stunning! At my local supermarket, I was struck by a whole aisle of food products from a French brand, ranging from fresh produce to cookies and cereals. Prices were in the same range of most imported goods from respectable brands where you know what you pay for and the French flag was abundantly displayed in an apparent effort to justify the prices. Why did it strike me, you ask? Simply because back home, the very same products from this brand are seen as nothing more than industrially mass produced, low-quality items. In a similar situation, albeit in a professional food environment, I received samples of an Italian nut paste from a sales person. They were awful, to say the least, but being polite I simply told the salesman these products were not exactly of high quality. His answer? “Yes, but it’s from Italy!”

You’ve seen it as well, in many Hong Kong supermarkets and in specialist stores, where many items are sold at a premium because of their country of origin instead of their quality. Of course, there is a fine line between a beautiful Pata Negra ham (with the relevant price tag) and a wannabe Pata Negra ham. Yes, there is of course a certain range of quality with lower and higher grades, but paying a high price for a lower grade product is just plain abuse.

As far as I am concerned, the origin of the product isn’t always an indicator of quality, but who could tell the difference if they have never tasted otherwise? There are few people I know that are well travelled and know their food, but there are also many people who are duped by this enormous scam nicely prepared by marketers. Too often, consumers are paying a high price for products that are far from being worth their money. Subsequently, if consumers have a disappointing experience, they’re less likely to purchase similar items and the country’s reputation for that product will be tarnished. Globalised trade makes it almost impossible to control who’s selling what and to whom in terms of quality, unless the product is part of a recognisable quality label such as AOC. 

Of course, there are items that are real quality and worth the money but, too often, it’s deception that greets us. A real life example comes from a very high standing restaurant I once worked for. The chef insisted on ordering Sichuan peppercorns from the Rungis market in Paris, saying it had better quality. We received the peppercorns in a bag with a label from the French company selling it, and a little mention on the label saying “Origin: China”. Now that, I really questioned…

In a Dr. Seuss cartoon I was watching with my son, one of the characters says “Put anything in a plastic bottle and people will buy it”, referring to selling bottled air. And to that I would add “Stick on the flag of a country well-known for its food and double the price!” I have yet to see the Chinese flag displayed on items imported from China.

Another grey area is when other countries’ flags are used on locally made goods.  I once came across food products from a Swiss company, manufactured in Poland and sold in Asia with a very prominent Swiss flag displayed on the packaging. Most people aren’t really concerned by the integrity of the company in regards to quality and perhaps carbon footprint, but are rather blinded by the flag/origin advertised. I have seen imported food that costs just a few cents more than locally made goods. You can do the math by yourself – if you add up the freight cost, the supermarket margin and all the costs in between, how much was the item sold back at the country of origin? And more so from a country where salaries and overhead costs are way above those of Hong Kong’s? What sort of quality was it in the first place? Are we buying food because of its image and packaging or because of what it really is?

I am well aware that producing locally is impossible to feed a city like Hong Kong, yet, it makes a lot more sense to me to buy food that has been made honestly in Hong Kong using quality ingredients, either imported or of local origin. We have tons of quality eateries catering great freshly cooked food for take-away, yet people buy ready-made frozen meals to be microwaved. And the same goes for meat, bread, fruits, vegetables, ice cream and so on.

There is probably nothing the Consumer Council can do against these “frauds”. And yes, I call it fraud because the price is too often inflated based on the origin of the product. Yet, while the product might indeed come from the country displayed, the price and quality on the other hand, cleverly manipulated by marketers, probably comes from another planet!