Yesterday, I had posted a link to a book review reporting on the mislabeling of the food that we buy today - fish, Kobe beef, sushi, high-end Olive Oils, etc. are generally either falsely labeled or adulterated. This is not unique in the commercial food business - here is another example from The London Daily Mail:
Farm brand 'fakers': Tesco 'cynically using British-sounding names to trick its shoppers into buying foreign food'
Supermarkets have been accused of 'cynically' inventing brand names that evoke the British countryside in order to dupe shoppers into buying imported food.
Produce sold under fictional names such as 'Nightingale Farms' or 'Rosedene Farms' might sound home-grown but in fact could come from as far afield as Morocco, Senegal or Honduras.
Now the National Farmers Union is 'seriously considering' legal action against leading stores for potentially misleading customers about the origin of their meat, fruit and vegetables.
I can see doing a house-brand. Costco does an excellent job of this with their Kirkland products and these products are of excellent quality so we shoppers trust them. The wholesale invention of local-sounding farms and producers crosses the line for me. Instead of Nightingale Farms, they should build up their own brand and call it Tesco Select or something - do this for long enough and the customers will recognize that these products may come from outside the UK but they will always be of the highest quality. Don't try to fake it - it will always blow up in your face.