South Africa's poor hit with counterfeit food

Investigators, legal experts and the Consumer Goods Council (CGC), through a series of raids, have discovered counterfeit milk, wine, liquor, matches, tinned fish, polish, sweets, rice, chips and biscuits. In some cases counterfeiters either scanned and copied the packaging of branded products or stole over-runs of packaging. "Sometimes you will find poor quality rice repackaged as a premium brand. The package may be the original thing, but the rice is poor quality," said CGC spokesman. 80 to 90 percent of counterfeit items were detected through customer complaint lines set up by companies, whose reps often concentrate on big cities and don't visit rural arreas frequently enough.