Egmont Honey chief executive James Annabell says an “administrative error” on the part of several online retailers which stock their new Dulce de Leche spread as “Honey” has been corrected.
The “creamy caramel spread”, as per the label, has been released under a separate Egmont Spreads branding, but Woolworths online store initially listed it as “Egmont Dulce De Leche Honey”, while Ottimo.co.nz ran with “Dulce de Leche (Egmont Honey) 450g” as their listing.
Dulce de leche is popular in Latin America as a sweet topping or filling for other foods. The Egmont spread includes corn syrup as an ingredient.
“This shouldn’t have happened, as we have been very clear with not only our own branding of this new product, but also during its manufacture, to separate it from honey,” Annabell says.
“Despite this, a couple of retailers have made a mistake and, as soon as we were notified of their mistake, we moved to inform them and get it corrected. I assume the mistake has been made as the vendor numbers and supplier name is under ‘Egmont Honey’.”
Annabell points out that Dulce de Leche has not been labelled under the Egmont Honey brand, but under Egmont Spreads. It is even made and packaged at a sperate facility to their honey packing.
“The idea was to leverage the fact that we are dealing with spreads buyers all over the world and try to capitalise on that. We are distinguishing our Dulce de Leche from others in the market by pointing out it is made from New Zealand grass fed cows’ milk. Taking the lessons we have learned from our unique honey, and trying to apply it to another sub-category in spreads.
“We don’t write the product listings for the retailers. We supply a product description – and honey would not have been anywhere near that – nonetheless, a couple of people have jumped to conclusions and made a mistake. It is very early days for our Dulce de Leche spread, so it is good to get notified so such mistakes are fixed promptly,” Annabell says.
