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The director of a food company which provided pies to Buckingham Palace and Fortnum & Mason has been jailed for re-packaging goods as organic.
Neil Stansfield, 51, bought food from sources including Tesco and Waitrose and sold it at twice the price, netting £500,000 in his six-year fraud.
His firm Onefood - which stood for "organic, natural and ethical" - sold a £20 Waitrose salmon for £51 while a butcher's £1.30 pork pies were sold for £2.50.
Stansfield, who also traded as Swaddles Organic in Daventry, Northants, told staff to dispose of supermarket wrapping. Invoices were faked and non-organic chickens were entered in the books as "game", which cannot be certified as organic.
Stansfield and his wife, Kate, 44, earlier pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading at Northampton crown court. Operations manager Russell Hudson, 40, admitted the same offence.
Stansfield made two to three trips to Tesco and Waitrose each day. When Fortnum & Mason stocked his Swaddles Organic pies he said they were "the best in the UK".
Matthew Lowe, prosecuting, said: "He was able to exploit premium prices attached to organic food." The deception was revealed when Trading Standards bought a salmon from Onefood for £51 and found it was from Waitrose.
The company, which had up to 12 employees and annual sales of between £500,000 and £2.5million, went into liquidation last year.
Judge Richard Bray jailed Stansfield for 27 months, gave his wife 50 weeks suspended for two years and sentenced Hudson to 40 weeks suspended for two years.
Reader views (2)
Mr Stansfield should have claimed it was a "technical oversight" and he would not have received a prison sentence. Indeed, Gordon Brown would probably have awarded him a knighthood - and wouldn't he then be in very eminent company.
- R.F.York, Yorks, UK, 23/09/2009 17:47
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He should have said it was a "technical oversight" and he would have been spared prison. Indeed, Gordon Brown would probably have awarded him a knighthood for his enterprising skills.
- R.F.York, Yorks, UK, 23/09/2009 17:32
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