The Oceana Group, which owns the Lucky Star tinned fish brand, yesterday refuted claims that counterfeit canned pilchards discovered during a police raid in Daleside, Gauteng, last week belong to the company.

It said investigators and third-party experts had confirmed the cans were counterfeit and used an opening mechanism that does not match Lucky Star. 

‘The labels are counterfeit and we do not use ring-pull lids on our canned pilchards,’ it said.

The Mail & Guardian reports that the re-labelled Lucky Star tins were packed in boxes marked ‘Woolworths Food’.

This is happening amid a nationwide contaminated food crisis, which has seen 890 incidents of food-borne illnesses reported in all provinces since September, with Gauteng and KZN being most affected.

Last week’s police raid at a Gauteng factory uncovered counterfeit Lucky Star pilchards cans and printing equipment used to alter expiration dates. The investigations have established that an international manufacturer produced the canned pilchards under the Woolworths’ brand, according to Oceana.

Woolworths imported and received them but later rejected the consignment and asked the supplier to collect it.

After collection, some of the consignment appears to have been intercepted and illegally relabelled as Lucky Star and repacked into the Woolworths-labelled cartons.

Oceana has advised consumers to identify counterfeit goods by checking the label for print clarity and smudging, whether the label is misaligned and not properly stuck to the can and the ink-jetted ‘best before’ date on the end of the can.

Full Mail & Guardian report

See also full report in The Star