CHOICE

133693, mornings at 3aw.com.au. Now, if diesel does hit $4 a litre, just about everything in the shops will get more expensive because everything in the shops gets there via a truck, which is almost inevitably diesel powered.

Choice has done a survey of grocery prices.

Now, this is grocery prices between March and June.

They had a basket of typical groceries, milk, apples, strawberries, bananas, potatoes, avos, rice, beef mince.

We can't keep our heads in the sand.

And, again, one of the byproducts of high diesel prices is high food prices.

I'm going to speak to the CEO of consumer website Choice shortly, And they've done a survey of a typical basket of grocery prices at all of the big supermarkets, Coles, Woolies, Aldi, Metcash.

And they concluded that between March and June, when the energy crisis was in its first phase, the basket of basic food items went up 7%.

Um, and I think that's a big thing where, you know, the people who are talking about it, it's a, it's a good sign that people who aren't talking about it, it's a bit of a red flag, um, getting to this point in the year.

And interesting, I saw that Choice magazine did a review of how much people would save by state, not by retailer, but by state, which I thought was quite interesting.

And it lined up almost perfectly with what the ACCC said, almost lined up perfectly with what I'm hearing people telling me for Victoria in particular, the state where I am.

But, yeah, we've been quite lucky in that solid chunk of our businesses in markets where there's an interest-free loan and interest-free loans make economics of batteries a

Like if you're an undergrad and you can't do a mole calculation, you're not graduating with a degree in chemistry.

And so yeah, you're seeing all these, quote-unquote, "cosmetic chemists." I think we saw this as a huge problem during Sunscreen Gate last year, which is when Choice Magazine found that a whole bunch of sunscreens were testing under their SPF.

There were cosmetic, quote-unquote, "chemists" saying really weird things like, "If it's got this much zinc oxide, it has to be o- it's definitely scientifically impossible to not be over SPF..." Can't remember what the number was.

There were also like brand owners who were also coming in, and they weren't being upfront with their credentials either, and they're saying, you know, Choice is like the EWG.

This was Charlotte Palomino specifically.

And it's like no choice were being advised by like proper sunscreen testing experts, and then you can't just like, you know, dismiss what they're saying.

Mm-hmm.

After Choice, which is the Australian consumer testing group, everybody-

Mm-hmm

...

Okay.

And that's what this product is replacing.

So yes, we had Choice, uh, was an Australian consumer group.

They tested a bunch of sunscreens, uh, co- The majority of which failed in their testing.

They're actually being sued for misleading and deceptive conduct by Ultraviolette.

As per the Sydney Morning Herald, of all 16 sunscreens that failed Choice's testing, the fall of Ultraviolette was the steepest.

So I don't know if you remember this, Mads, but their actual recording of what their SPF measurement was was SPF 4.

Yes, and it was labeled as an SPF 50 to market, which r- that was the, the largest gap, and I think where the most of the outrage kind of sat was with Ultraviolette.

So many of them didn't actually have anyone fronting their statements.

If anything, I would say they were pretty faceless.

Yeah, and I do think a lot of the brands got off pretty scot-free, and I will say of that, there were some that came off the shelf due to Choice.

But for those who were following very, very closely, and I say this because I was in the industry at the time watching very closely, there were some brands that very quietly took it down, uploaded one Instagram post, and then flooded their feed with a lot of other content to try and distract from that.

Heliora shares the same CEO and director as Wild Child.

Does this case of mislabeled SPF sound familiar? Ultra Violette was one of the brands that was tested by consumer group Choice back in June last year.

Choice tested 20 sunscreens and found only four gave the SPF protection their label claimed.

Among them were three children's sunscreens and three sold by the Cancer Council.

In fact, Ultra Violette's was the worst-performing sunscreen and the most expensive.

Ultra Violette's Lean Screen SPF 50+ Mattifying Zinc Sunscreen costs $52 for 75 milliliters.

The result of an SPF of 4 was so low that the Choice team commissioned a smaller additional test at a German lab to validate the results.

All the brands tested rejected Choice's findings and said their own independent testing showed their products met the advertised SPF.

Isn't that just so juicy? We're all just loving sunscreen gate at the moment.

The whole thing that's going on with Choice and the sunscreen brand.

If

you look at the results, Ultraviolet scored the lowest.

Thank you so much for having us.

Okay, Jess, I'm going to start with you.

Can you just take us back to where this saga began? Because in June last year, the consumer advocacy group Choice published an investigation into sunscreen.

So what did it find broadly? And then where did ultraviolet sit within its findings?