Katy Perry‘s favourite source of royalties and the sole reason fifty per cent of Australians know how to spell croquembouche, MasterChef, has been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Talk about spicy.
Comms Declare, a group that seeks to stop the promotion or marketing of fossil fuels, filed the official complaint to the ACCC with help from a team of lawyers from the Environmental Defenders Office.
Its main complaint is over a line used at the beginning of the show that claims the MasterChef kitchen is “going greener with renewable gas”. Comms Declare believe this may deceive Australians into thinking the gas used on the show is ‘green’ and ‘renewable’ when it believes the gas simply “causes pollution“.
The gas used in the MasterChef kitchen is biomethane gas, which is a special kind of fuel made from rotting waste. And yes, it is powering up the MasterChef stoves AND the MasterChef pockets, with Australian Gas Network (AGN)’s “Renewable Gas” logo appearing in the credits of every episode. Another day, another problematic sponsorship deal.
Other international iterations of the show have notably made the switch to electrical induction stovetops.
“The biomethane and grey hydrogen used in the MasterChef kitchen is not renewable, not low emissions, not commercially viable and not available in ordinary Australian homes,” Belinda Noble, founder of Comms Declare told Yahoo.
Per Yahoo, the complaint letter filed to the ACCC is 20 pages long and lists a total of 41 concerns. It particularly focuses on the use of the term “renewable gas”, which is a wild combination of two words that do not belong together.
“(AGN) is providing biomethane and hydrogen to MasterChef Australia to practically demonstrate that customers can cook with a low carbon solution that can be delivered by existing gas networks to support Australia’s transition to net zero,” an AGN spokesperson said in a statement.
“Throughout the MasterChef Australia sponsorship, we have been clear about the nature of the sponsorship and the gas used on set. We have taken care to ensure we accurately described the gas we were supplying.”
The ACCC has not yet commented on whether or not it will be moving forward with an official investigation. Poh, get behind me, I am not letting you go down with the MasterChef ship.
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