Can You Say Made In Australia In Your Marketing?

You can say Made in Australia when the goods were substantially transformed in Australia. That test comes from the Australian Consumer Law, and it applies everywhere the claim appears: the box, the website, a Google ad, a caption under a workshop video.

For a manufacturer it is one of the strongest lines available. Buyers in procurement, construction and retail ask where a product is made, and a true local claim answers before they ask. The work is making sure every version of the claim holds up.

What substantially transformed means

The goods have to go through a fundamental change in Australia, so that what leaves the factory is new and different from what came in. Cutting, forming, welding and machining raw steel into a frame is a transformation. Putting an imported product in a local box is not, and neither is a simple assembly of imported parts or a new label.

Since 2017 there has been no 50 per cent production cost test for a made in claim. The cost split no longer decides it. What decides it is whether the change happened here.

Product of Australia is a higher bar

Product of Australia and Grown in Australia are stricter claims. Every significant ingredient or component has to come from Australia, and all or virtually all of the production has to happen here as well.

A food or skincare brand that processes locally with imported ingredients can be Made in Australia and still fall short of Product of Australia. Pick the claim the facts support, then use that same claim on every surface.

The kangaroo logo needs a licence

The green and gold triangle with the kangaroo is a registered certification trade mark. Australian Made Campaign Limited runs it, and putting it on packaging, a website or an ad needs a licence for the products that carry it.

A licence gives a manufacturer a mark buyers recognise on sight. Using the mark without one is a trade mark problem on top of any consumer law problem.

Food has its own labels

Food for retail sale in Australia falls under the Country of Origin Food Labelling Information Standard 2016, with a few exemptions. Priority foods made in Australia carry a standard panel with a bar chart showing the share of Australian ingredients.

The standard sets the panel. The marketing copy around it still has to say the same thing the panel does.

The overall impression counts

A claim does not need the words Made in Australia to count as one. An Australian flag in the corner of an ad or a map of Australia on the packaging both suggest local manufacture, and the ACCC looks at the impression the whole ad leaves.

So check the pictures as closely as the words. If the business designs here and manufactures offshore, say Designed in Australia and say where the product is made. That is a true claim, and it still carries weight with a buyer who cares about local engineering.

Where the claim goes wrong online

The label on the box usually gets checked. Old pages often do not.

A range that moved part of its production offshore three years ago can still say Made in Australia on a page nobody has opened since. Search the site, the ad account and the last year of posts for every origin claim, and log each one against the product it describes.

Show the floor

A true local claim earns more when the buyer can see it. Video of the team on the machines and the product coming off the line in your own workshop is proof that no stock photo can supply. It is exactly the footage a production day on the floor exists to capture.

Tie every origin claim to a named product, a named site and a person who can confirm the process. A buyer who can trace the claim back to the factory floor trusts the rest of the page too.