The Ministry of Trade Advertisement Board examined the packaging of Sütaş Süt Ürünleri A.Ş.'s product named "Sütaş Cream Cheese" at its meeting dated 13 June 2023.
During the examination, it was determined that the weight of the product was reduced from 160 grams to 150 grams, but this change was not accompanied by a statement such as "New grammage", "New quantity", etc. on the product packaging that consumers could notice the change in weight.
Since the weight change causes the unit price of the product to increase, it has been decided that the lack of information constitutes misleading and reduces the average consumer's ability to make an informed decision by affecting economic behavior and is contrary to the legislation in this context.
As a matter of fact, among the examples of deceptive commercial practices included in the annex of the Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices, there is "misleading packaging practices that give the impression that no change has been made, despite the change in one of the quantity, length, weight, area, volume measurements and similar elements of a good offered to consumers in a way to differentiate the unit price". Therefore, consumers should be informed of these kinds of changes.
You can access the full text of the decision from the Press Release of the Advertising Board Meeting dated 13 June 2023 via this link (only available in Turkish).
Information first published in the MA | Gazette, a fortnightly legal update newsletter produced by Moroğlu Arseven.
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