Auckland, New Zealand – The world’s largest dairy exporter, New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra has admitted that the packaging on its flagship Anchor-brand butter breached fair trade laws in order to settle a lawsuit brought by Greenpeace Aotearoa in 2024.

The lawsuit alleged that Fonterra misled customers by prominently featuring on its packaging the claim that Anchor butter is ‘100% New Zealand grass-fed’. In reality, Fonterra  allows its cows to eat palm kernel expeller, an imported supplementary feed which has potential links to the destruction of rainforests in Southeast Asia. 

New Zealand is the largest importer of palm kernel expeller, a product of the oil palm industry. The feed has notoriously murky supply chains, and in early 2025, Greenpeace Aotearoa used research from Rainforest Action Network and Nusantara Atlas to link companies selling palm kernel into New Zealand to illegal deforestation in Indonesia’s Rawa Singkil Wildlife reserve. 

Greenpeace Aotearoa Agriculture campaigner Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn said: “An admission of guilt from New Zealand’s biggest company is a massive win against corporate greenwash everywhere. It’s simple, companies shouldn’t be allowed to mislead customers in order to sell products. 

“Fonterra has admitted that its packaging was likely to mislead consumers. The truth is that its supposed ‘100% New Zealand Grass-Fed’ butter could be linked to the destruction of paradise rainforests in Southeast Asia.

“Fonterra is just the latest in a chain of meat and dairy corporations who have been held to account for their  greenwashing. It’s clear that the writing is on the wall and people are fed up with corporate greed and manipulation.

“If our governments won’t hold these polluters accountable, people will take to the courts and the streets to do so instead.”

ENDS

Notes:

Fonterra is set to finalise the sale of its consumer brands – including Anchor Butter – to French dairy giant Lactalis later this year.

This admission from Fonterra builds on a growing wave of legal accountability for the meat and dairy industry.

In March 2024, the Danish High Court ruled against Danish Crown – Europe’s largest pork producer – in a landmark greenwashing case, finding that its ‘climate-controlled pork’ labels were misleading and lacked independent verification. 

In 2025, Greenpeace Denmark and Sweden filed formal complaints against Arla, Europe’s largest dairy producer, for systematically overstating its climate progress. The complaints, submitted to regulatory bodies in both Denmark and Sweden, allege that Arla misled the public by claiming a 13% reduction in supply chain emissions since 2015.

Documentation suggests nearly half of this reduction resulted from a 2016 change in calculation methodology rather than actual carbon savings. These complaints are currently under formal review by the relevant authorities in both Denmark and Sweden.

Contacts:

Rhiannon Mackie, Press Officer at Greenpeace Aotearoa, +64 27 244 6729, rhiannon.mackie@greenpeace.org 

Joe Evans, Agriculture Global Comms Lead, Greenpeace UK, +44 7890 595387, joe.evans@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

Amsterdam — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US filed on 27 March 2026 a motion for a new trial in North Dakota District Court. This demand for justice follows the absurd and flawed US$ 345 million judgment issued by the same court in Energy Transfer’s SLAPP lawsuit against the Greenpeace parties returned on 27 February 2026. Energy Transfer’s back-to-back SLAPP lawsuits are attempts to erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock Movement, punish solidarity with the ongoing resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and intimidate environmental activists from speaking out against Big Oil companies.  

In regard to the Greenpeace defendants’ motion for a new trial, Greenpeace International General Counsel Kristin Casper said:

“Our motion for a new trial should be granted to prevent one of the largest miscarriages of justice in North Dakota’s history. We are demanding the court right the wrongs committed at trial and to ensure the rights and freedoms promised under the US constitution are protected.  

“There is no question the Greenpeace defendants were denied a fair trial — even a concise summary of the errors and injustices that marred the trial runs to over 100 pages. Greenpeace will not rest until justice is served and Big Oil can no longer use and abuse the legal system in North Dakota or anywhere else.” 

Among the numerous egregious flaws documented in the motion for a new trial are:

1. The Greenpeace defendants could not receive a fair and impartial trial in Morton County.
2. Seven out of nine jurors that decided the case had clear biases due to fossil fuel industry ties, experiences with the Standing Rock protests, and/or preexisting negative views of the Greenpeace defendants.
3. Despite the fact that thousands of individuals and hundreds of organisations were involved in actions at Standing Rock and speaking out against DAPL, and North Dakota law clearly requiring damages to be split among everyone who contributed to alleged harms, the jury and the court assigned 100% of the claimed damages to the Greenpeace defendants. 
4. The jury’s verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence on each and every count. 
5. The jury verdict was tainted by the inclusion of inadmissible, prejudicial information. 
6. The jury was improperly prevented from hearing relevant, admissible evidence that was favorable to the Greenpeace defendants. 
7. The jury was provided erroneous and incomplete instructions and a flawed verdict form.

The motion can be accessed here. 

ENDS

CONTACTS: 

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

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Here in Denmark, we are often celebrated globally for our green ambitions. But beneath the surface of the landscapes I call home, a toxic secret is seeping into our groundwater. Today, a massive people-powered movement is rising up to challenge the powerful meat and dairy industry, which is also at the centre of water pollution fights far beyond Denmark, from Brazil’s Amazon to Aotearoa New Zealand and many European countries.

Earlier this week, on March 24th, my fellow Danes and I headed to the polls in a highly contested national election that has become known as the “Pig Election.” At the heart of the debate is something fundamental to human health: our drinking water.

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For half a century, successive governments have allowed the industrial agricultural lobby giant, today called Landbrug & Fødevarer (Danish Agriculture & Food Council), to dictate environmental policy through weak, voluntary agreements.

Here in Denmark, as well as anywhere else from the Amazon to Aotearoa New Zealand, Big Ag has privatised the profits and left everyone else to pay the price. Here they have quite literally forced the public to swallow the pollution, handing taxpayers a clean-up bill of 645 million Danish kroner, or about US$ 100 million. This is the extractive industry’s playbook worldwide. But the people of the Danish “bacon country” have had enough.

The tipping point in Denmark’s water crisis

To expose this health-threatening corporate greed, activists from Greenpeace Denmark executed a surprise dawn stunt at Landbrug & Fødevarer headquarters in Copenhagen. Activists redecorated the lobby giant’s facade, replacing their polished corporate advertisements with huge, red hazard symbols.

High above on the roof, activists dressed in suits and pig masks symbolically “produced manure” on portable toilets, reading the lobby’s own fabricated news.

We have campaigned relentlessly against this corporate capture for decades, alongside scientists, communities and citizens who refuse to accept polluted water as the price of doing business. The historic mobilisation we are seeing today is a powerful testament to every activist, scientist, and citizen who refused to give up the fight.

The result of this decades-long corporate negligence? Toxic pesticide residues are now found in over half (55.7%) of Denmark’s drinking water wells. Massive amounts of nitrate from industrial manure are leaching into the groundwater, significantly increasing the risk of colorectal cancer for our local communities.

Why this is bigger than Denmark

What is happening in Denmark is not an isolated fight, but part of a much broader global struggle over who gets to control food systems, water and public health. Big Ag desperately tries to paint environmental action as unpopular, but the numbers tell a different story.

A staggering 95% of the Danish public is now demanding better protection of our drinking water, and 9 out of 10 voters support a ban on pesticides, on top of our groundwater, according to a recent opinion poll. This is no longer a niche environmental issue.

People across the world have had enough of Big Ag. From soy-driven deforestation in the Amazon to battles over industrial dairy and nitrate pollution in other countries, more and more communities are rising up to protect their water, land and health from corporate exploitation.

Drinking water and the treatment of pigs became the defining issue in the Danish election. There is now a large parliamentary majority that has promised to implement the ban on using pesticides on top of our groundwater, that the Danes have demanded. And there is a large majority in favour of reducing the health limit for nitrate in our drinking water, which will protect people from increased bowel cancer risk.

We will hold the new Danish government accountable to the mandate the Danes have given, and we will be paying close attention to see that the promises made during the election actually turn into real change.

Clean water needs a different food system

We need a food system that works with nature, not against it. We are fighting for a transition to ecological farming, a future where food production nourishes both people and the planet, where rural communities thrive, and where access to clean, unpolluted drinking water is a human right.

That means confronting the global model of industrial meat and dairy production that drives water pollution, climate emissions and deforestation across borders. When communities stand together, Big Ag loses its power. The Danish elections prove that systemic change is politically viable when we demand it with a unified voice. It is time to move beyond symbolic gestures and build the power needed to protect our homes.

Industrial agriculture is destroying our planet and our health, no matter where you live. You are part of a winning, global movement, and it is time to act.

Stop Big Meat and Dairy

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Christian Fromberg is a Political Campaigner at Greenpeace Denmark.