Queensland Health v Pacifica Trading Pty Ltd

On Monday, 10 April 2017, Crown Law represented Queensland Health in a prosecution against Pacifica Trading Pty Ltd and its director, Mr Carmelo Comi.

Both defendants pleaded guilty to offences under the Food Act 2006 (Qld). The corporate offender was charged with five offences under s 37(3) of the Act for selling food that was packaged or labelled in a way that falsely described the food while Mr Comi was charged with five offences under s 260 of the Act for failing to ensure the corporation complied with s 37(3) of the Act.

Pacifica Trading, the first defendant, runs a retail and wholesale seafood business on the Gold Coast, selling seafood to members of the public and to businesses. Mr Comi, on behalf of Pacifica Trading, was directing employees to package imported prawns into different boxes and relabel them as ‘Product of Australia’. The repackaged prawns were then sold to two local hotel restaurants.

An investigation by the Gold Coast Public Health Unit was commenced after both Queensland Health and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission had received anonymous complaints. The investigation revealed the company had sold 330 kilograms of imported prawns repackaged into boxes that were labelled as Australian prawns to the Watermark and Versace restaurants between 6 and 12 February 2016.

As part of the investigation, ex-employees provided information to Queensland Health that Mr Comi had been instructing employees to repackage and relabel prawns as being a ‘Product of Australia’. An inspection of Pacifica Trading’s freezers revealed 38 cartons of prawns were falsely labelled as a ‘Product of Australia’ while samples showed they were in fact vannamei imported prawns. Mr Comi, however, denied the prawns were vannamei imported prawns and said they were farmed at Yatala. A number of documents were also seized from Pacifica Trading which included internal records of sales using the vannamei imported prawns. Subsequent inspections at both the Watermark and Palazzo Versace restaurants revealed boxes of imported prawns which were falsely labelled as Australian prawns. Employees of the restaurants confirmed the imported prawns were part of a delivery received from Pacifica Trading.

His Honour, Magistrate Dermott Keogh, fined the company $45,000 and its director, Mr Comi, $10,000. The company and director were also ordered to pay Queensland Health’s legal costs and analyst fees.