Tasmanian Island Pork Alliance secretary Nick Steel said the co-operative nature in which the industry and the ACCC had resolved the issue would go a long way to give clear direction to suppliers of pork products as to how their products should be labelled in the future.

The ACCC found that in three cases, the reference to either "free range" or "bred free range", used by some mainland pork producers, in the promotion and labelling of the pork products was likely to give consumers the overall impression that their pigs were farmed according to free range methods.

"In fact, this was not the case," ACCC chairman Rod Simms said.

"It is important that the description on product packaging and in promotional material accurately reflects the living conditions of the animals raised for the production of meat products.

"Marketing material must use words that consumers can understand, irrespective of whether the words have some special industry meaning."

The ACCC accepted court-enforceable undertakings from P&M Quality Smallgoods Pty Ltd (trading as Primo Smallgoods), George Weston Foods Pty Ltd (trading as KR Castlemaine) and Pastoral Pork Company Pty Ltd (trading as Otway Pork) as a result of their investigation.

"In all cases, the producers have committed not to use the same descriptions unless their farming practices are such that, at a minimum, the pigs are able to move about freely in an outdoor paddock on most ordinary days" Mr Sims said.

Mr Steel said the Tasmanian pork industry had worked hard over a number of years to develop standards underpinning high-quality production of pork by various systems, some of which occur fully or partly outdoors.

"These production systems are followed in a response to some consumer segments which demand specific attributes of their pork products," he said.