Fonterra and Greenpeace have agreed to resolve a dispute over labelling on butter.
The proceeding concerns claims by Greenpeace that a label on Anchor butter sold in New Zealand supermarkets between December 2023 and April 2025 was misleading and in breach of the Fair Trading Act 1986.
It argued that it was misleading because the diet of cows whose milk was used to make the butter included non-grass feed including palm kernel expeller (PKE), an imported supplemental feed.
Fonterra accepted that the use in the label of the two phrases ‘100% New Zealand’ and ‘Grass Fed’ in combination with each other was likely to mislead some New Zealand consumers, particularly those unaware of the nature of the feeds that are provided to dairy cows.
The claim did not put in issue the question of whether or not the phrase ‘Grass Fed’ on its own was misleading, and Fonterra said it made no admission that the words ‘Grass Fed’ in isolation are likely to mislead.
Fonterra has now stated that it has removed the label from its Anchor butter packaging and has undertaken not to use the label on its packaging in the future.
Fonterra and Greenpeace
Fonterra and Greenpeace have therefore settled a case brought by Greenpeace in 2024 concerning the historic Anchor butter label sold in New Zealand.
The New Zealand Government’s Ministry for Primary Industries has created a national New Zealand Dairy Grass-Fed Administrative Standard to define what constitutes a grass-fed system in New Zealand.
This reflects New Zealand’s temperate climate, which provides the ideal conditions for pasture-based farming that has been practiced by generations of New Zealand farmers, according to Fonterra.
This national Grass-Fed Standard specifies the requirements and attributes that must be met for Grass Fed certification to be issued.
Fonterra has stated that its farmers’ cows are 96% Grass Fed, with “grass” defined as including grass, grass sileage, hay and forage crops (including brassicas and legumes).
The company added that its definition of grass is consistent with the grass-fed feed types in the New Zealand Dairy Grass-Fed Administrative Standard.
The 96% statistic is calculated as an average across Fonterra’s farmers’ dairy herds, and on an ‘as consumed’ basis.