When a food label ships with missing items

The trade surplus for the month stood near NZ$0.8 billion. Imports climbed too, up 26% to NZ$8.1 billion. Over the month, dairy climbed 6.9% to NZ$2.3 billion, while aluminium jumped 90% to NZ$282 million on a 23% rise in quantity and a 54% lift in average unit value. Strong monthly gains flowed to China and Japan, with Australia and the United States following.

The commodity mix behind that headline shows the shape of the risk. Dairy leads the food basket, its butter and cheese within the total. To China, meat and edible offal rose NZ$70 million over the month. Fruit shipments to Japan gained NZ$17 million. Aotearoa also ships fish and shellfish to China, the kaimoana (seafood) whose crustacean and mollusc content ranks among the allergens most likely to trigger anaphylaxis. On the mandatory allergen list, milk and tree nuts already appear, with crustacean and mollusc.

For a buyer in Shanghai or Osaka, the ingredient list arrives translated into Mandarin or Japanese. Trusting only that sticker, the shopper treats it as the truth about the contents. Monthly exports to China rose 10.3%, while shipments to Japan gained 30.8%. Australia and the United States posted rises of 32.9% and 28.7%.

To see how a wrong wording ends in liability, consider a matter decided in the Northern District of California. Daiso Industries Company exports packaged goods from Japan to Daiso California and Daiso Holdings USA, which distribute them to retail stores or sell them online. The distribution chain handles a large volume of imported stock. Altogether, Daiso holds more than 3,000 stores in Japan and 2,300 outside it, including 89 across the United States. One product in that flow, the Tiramisu Twist Cookie, listed its ingredients in Japanese on the original packaging. The English-language sticker on it then declared the contents to the American shopper.

Alongside the Japanese ingredient list, the English sticker told a different story. The Japanese text named the tree nuts (アーモンド and ヘーゼルナッツ) in the recipe. Once printed, the English wording left the almonds and hazelnuts off the list. There was nothing on the English sticker to warn a shopper of the almonds nor the hazelnuts.

Because the English sticker omitted the tree nuts, Makiko Fukaya had no warning of what she was eating. In the summer of 2022, she bought the Tiramisu Twist Cookie at a Daiso store in Daly City. She scanned the English ingredient sticker and began eating in the car park. Within moments she suffered a violent allergic reaction and needed emergency treatment. Her later complaint alleged she had encountered the identical labelling problem on another Daiso product.

As a result of the reaction, Fukaya's attorney alerted the defendants on 26 October 2022. The next day, the companies issued a worldwide recall of the Tiramisu Twist Cookie, pulling it from shelves across their markets.

Under California law, the complaint asserted violations of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the Unfair Competition Law. It added a False Advertising Law count and a claim for breach of express warranty. The ingredient list is itself an express warranty, a promise about the package contents. Across the laws of 43 jurisdictions, the complaint pleaded that warranty. The court would later question so broad a scope. The suit sought damages and an order to correct the labelling.

In those filings, the defendants moved to dismiss, arguing the plaintiff had no right to sue after the company recalled the product. The court held otherwise in a November 2024 order denying dismissal. The judge found a plausible inference of systemic failure in the company's process of translating and labelling its English ingredient lists, such that other Daiso foods likely shared the fault.

By contrast, the plaintiff's later bid for class certification failed. In September 2025 Judge Rita Lin denied it, finding that individualised questions about which consumers consulted the label and suffered injury would predominate over the common ones. The proposed damages class swept in all buyers rather than only those with a nut allergy or others who would find the omission material. The plaintiff produced no workable damages model, describing the calculation as a straightforward arithmetic task within the company's capacity. As for the injunctive class, the plaintiff identified no ongoing practice for a court to enjoin. The denial did not end the plaintiff's own claims.

Who counts as injured? Materiality and reliance decide the question. New Zealand and Australian suppliers address the risk through Standard 1.2.3 of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, which Food Standards Australia New Zealand administers. Under Proposal P1044, the Plain English Allergen Labelling rules became fully mandatory from 27 February 2026, after sales of old stock ended a day earlier.

Once the goods leave Aotearoa, the labelling obligation follows them into markets outside the Code's remit. Across the South Pacific, New Zealand supplies much of the food. Dairy and meat bound for Fiji and Sāmoa arrive among shoppers who consult a label in Fijian or Samoan. Tongan and Cook Islands Māori buyers face an equal exposure.

With that risk in view, the Code allows a sticker override only if it fully overlays the non-compliant wording and holds to the legibility rules. Under the rule, responsibility falls on the supplier. Building the allergen declaration correctly at packing time costs a fraction of a recall or a lawsuit. New Zealand's record export month will send many such lists into many languages this year and our teams are ready to tackle them.