US companies face litigation over marketing claims

Three major US food companies face litigation after the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) issued demand letters regarding their use of deceptive labelling and marketing.

CSPI has sent notifications to Kraft, Abbott Laboratories and Smart Balance.

Crystal Light manufacturer Kraft Foods will be sued if it continues to use the word ‘natural’ in connection with its Natural Lemonade, Natural Pink Lemonade, Natural Lemon Iced Tea and Natural Lemon Decaffeinated Iced Tea products in the US.

According to the CSPI, these products contain ingredients that are anything but natural, including aspartame, acesulfame-potassium, Red 40, Yellow 5, maltodextrin and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA).

“Consumers are increasingly looking for ‘natural’ products because they expect them to be free of artificial sweeteners, dyes, preservatives and other industrially created ingredients,” said CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner.

“Crystal Light, which is almost all chemicals and almost no actual food, is the last product on earth that should be masquerading as ‘natural’.”

Smart Balance received notification about unauthorised and illegal claims on its Smart Balance Blended Butter Sticks. The product features claims such as “help block cholesterol”. The CSPI says this claim is an illegal disease-prevention claim as well as an illegal health claim.

According to the CSPI, by marketing the product as preventing or treating disease, the products should be considered unapproved new drugs. In addition, the product does not contain enough plant sterol esters - and contains too much saturated fat - to qualify to make an FDA-approved health claim.

Finally, CSPI has notified Abbott Laboratories that it will face a lawsuit if it continues to make deceptive and illegal claims about its Ensure Complete Nutrition Shake and Ensure Muscle Health Shake. Abbott recommends that the products be consumed twice daily as “part of a healthy diet”. The CSPI says that consuming two bottles of these products each day would provide more sugar than the American Heart Association recommends in an entire day.

The company also reportedly makes dubious claims about the products’ omega-3 content. “These shakes are more likely to promote obesity, diabetes and other health problems than they are to promote healthy muscles, heart, bones and so on,” Gardner said.

“In a perfect world, agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission would be aggressively policing the marketplace and taking enforcement action against companies like these,” said CSPI Executive Director Michael F Jacobson.

“Until then, lawsuits by consumer groups and private citizens can play an important role by using the courts to get companies to change their labelling and advertising for the better.”

The CSPI’s litigation department has won agreements with other major companies, such as a 2007 agreement with Kellogg Company that set nutrition standards for the food it markets to children and a 2012 agreement with Pfizer improving the labelling of its Centrum multivitamins.