The fines included in the bill would apply to any grocery store, supermarket, farmers market or convenience store that sells a mislabeled fruit or vegetable. | Matt Rourke/AP Photo
TRENTON — New Jersey grocers would face a $200 fine for selling a New York-grown apple as a “local” piece of fruit, under a bill backed by outgoing Senate President Steve Sweeney and advanced Monday by the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.
Sweeney’s bill is meant to combat foreign fruits and vegetables from being dumped on New Jersey shelves in a way that dupes consumers trying to compare apples and oranges.
But some members of the produce industry worry the bill, NJ S4128 (20R), could be overly punitive and appealed for Sweeney to amend it. The fines included in the bill would apply to any grocery store, supermarket, farmers market or convenience store that sells a mislabeled fruit or vegetable. The fines would be $100 to $200 per item, so a mislabeled bushel of apples — which holds about 120 apples — could result in a fine of $24,000.
“We certainly understand the issue that the bill is trying to address,” said Michael DeLoreto, a lobbyist for the New Jersey Food Council who testified Monday. “Our concern is that this is not the best method by which to go about doing this.”
DeLoreto also worried that defining “local” as only fruits and vegetables from New Jersey could start a food fight with neighboring states. If other states used the same definition, that could hurt New Jersey farmers who take their produce to Philadelphia and, of course, the Big Apple itself, New York City.
Those aren’t the kinds of sour grapes struggling farmers need right now.
Zone 7, a food distributor that sells New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware produce to Whole Foods, among other stores, urged lawmakers to adopt a definition of “local“ that counts fruit and vegetables from neighboring states. Some of that out-of-state fruit could be sold in New Jersey closer to where it was grown than some New Jersey fruit might be.
“If you have South Carolina peaches labeled as local in the store, clearly they are not from anywhere close to here,” Zone 7’s founder, Mikey Azzara, told the committee. “But Bucks County, Pennsylvania, farms are equally close to a Princeton store, if not closer.”
Indeed, New Jersey Farm Bureau representative Ed Wengryn said the bill followed a perfect storm of sorts in the southern United States, which had a cold spring, delaying the peach crops there. That meant those out-of-state peaches were hitting New Jersey markets at the same time as native peaches.
“Confusion happens in the marketplace where South Carolina peaches are on the shelves next to local fruit displays,” Wengryn testified.
The Farm Bureau also pointed to larger issues, like a small budget for the Jersey Fresh program, which only gets $150,000 from the state to promote not just Jersey fruits and vegetables but also Jersey cheeses, breads, meats and seafood.
Sen. Richard Codey (D-Essex) recommended changing the bill’s language to something less fuzzy, like “Jersey local.”
But the Senate Environment and Energy Committee voted to advance the bill without changes after Chair Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), was reluctant to amend the bill without approval from Sweeney, the Senate’s outgoing top banana.
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