Dannon has won the yogurt ad war with Chobani.
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The advertisements for Chobani’s “Simply 100” yogurt claim that Dannon Light and Fit is made with sucralose and contains chlorine.
“We’re committed to continuing the conversation and it’s good to see big food companies like General Mills starting to remove artificial ingredients from some of their products, like their cereals”, he wrote. Chobani, which has headquarters in Norwich, seeks a declaration from the federal court that advertising for its Chobani Simply 100 Greek Yogurt products isn’t false. Chobani still believes that highlighting the difference between natural and artificial ingredients, specifically sweeteners and preservatives, is important. “Sucralose? Why? That stuff has chlorine added to it”.
In a statement provided to Food Dive, Dannon said, “We are pleased with the court’s decision granting a preliminary injunction to stop this misleading advertising which is causing fear about safe ingredients, and we look forward to full and final resolution of this matter”. These boxes, we are told, are filled with food dyes, syrups, preservatives-and “ticky tacky”, a meaningless term that evokes in the imagination all kinds of bad stuff.
General Mills and Dannon each sued Chobani. Chobani Simply 100 Greek Yogurt is the only nationally distributed brand of reduced calorie Greek Yogurt that does not contain artificial sweeteners or artificial preservatives.
In responding to General Mills and Dannon’s lawsuits, Chobani argued that its ad claims about potassium sorbate and sucralose are merely “puffery” statements of Chobani’s own opinion about the superiority of its own natural products, Hurd wrote.
The court disagreed with Chobani’s assertion that the safety of sucralose and potassium sorbate for human consumption is still the subject of legitimate scientific debate.
Chobani also has been prohibited from continuing a separate but similar ad campaign against Dannon, another major USA yogurt brand. “This campaign is about giving people truthful and accurate information so they can make more informed decisions about the food they buy”. We have always used only safe ingredients to make a wide variety of yogurts that are enjoyed every day by millions of people.
General Mills also praised the ruling, telling NBC News via email that it “supports fair and vigorous competition between companies, but false advertising only misleads and harms consumers“. One add, set beside a swimming pool, likened substance to pool chlorine.
Sucralose is a molecule manufactured by the addition of three atoms of chlorine, a trio “commonly known in the scientific community as ‘chloride, ‘ ” according to Hurd’s order. “Calcium hypochlorite is not found in, or used to manufacture, any of Dannon’s products”.
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Dannon quickly sent a “cease and desist” letter to Chobani two weeks ago, demanding that it stop running the ads because it claimed they were false and misleading.
