We have posted previously about Blue Buffalo pet foods being highly suspicious. For a variety of reasons. But here is hte current article -
http://www.poisonedpets.com/blue-buffalo-gets-slammed-by-a-shit-storm-of-consumer-lawsuits-based-on-deceptive-advertising-claims/
we have never used or recommended this particular food - so please be aware.
Blue Buffalo gets slammed by a shit storm of new lawsuits
Nestlé Purina PetCare Company (Purina) aren’t the only people
suing Blue Buffalo, now consumers have jumped on the litigation
bandwagon and Blue Buffalo is getting slammed by a multitude of lawsuits
alleging deceptive advertising practices. The growing number of
lawsuits filed against Blue Buffalo keep growing and they are claiming,
among other things, that the company falsely represented that their pet
food does not contain ingredients – such as chicken/poultry by-product
meals and corn – when it appears as if Blue Buffalo’s pet food might
actually contain those ingredients.
Because of the number of class action lawsuits involved the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation has agreed to
consolidate seven false advertising class action lawsuits
filed against Blue Buffalo Co. Ltd. for misleading customers about the
ingredients in its pet food. They alleged that Blue Buffalo misled its
customers by claiming its pet food products did not contain any chicken
by-products, corn or grain and led them to pay premium prices for the
pet food. The class-action lawsuit was transferred to another court
where several related lawsuits making the same allegations will be heard
together.
The smoking e-mails
It is safe to assume that Blue Buffalo was aware, at some point, that
their pet food did contain the vilified ingredient they based their
marketing claim on, when during pretrial discovery—the process by which
litigants demand internal documents and communications that could become
evidence—e-mails revealed that Purina claims reinforce its allegations.
In May, e-mails between a Blue Buffalo ingredient broker (Diversified
Ingredients) and a major supplier (Wilbur-Ellis) suggest strongly that
they did indeed sell pet food containing by-product meal. In an e-mail
to Diversified Ingredients, a broker working for Blue Buffalo, a sales
manager for supplier Wilbur-Ellis wrote that it did include “some
by-product meal” in shipments from a Texas plant intended for Blue
Buffalo.
Realizing that the inclusion of by-product meal now has potential
legal consequences, Diversified Ingredients expressed alarm to
Wilbur-Ellis and a way to respond to the kibble crisis:
“I think if we work together, we can band-aid this
situation,” Diversified’s Collin McAtee wrote on May 15 to Darwin Rusu
of Wilbur-Ellis. Referring to a “smoking gun,” McAtee added, “If you are
going to fill these contracts for any reason, then I’m going to have to
go to Blue Buffalo to address the breach of contract and undoubtedly
divulge the details of what was shipped and the possibility that
Rosser’s material is the smoking gun for their problems. That I
do not want to do. If the finger is pointed in that direction and then
later verified to have been the cause, then Diversified and Wilbur will
both have to answer to this in litigation with Blue. The liabilities in
this could be enormous. You are talking about massive product recalls,
potential market share loss, etc. That would undoubtedly be in the
several million dollar range.”
Blue Buffalo then claimed they were duped by their supplier, by
publicly revealing
that contrary to prior assurances, Blue Buffalo admitted that
ingredients from their supplier did in fact contain poultry by-product
meal after all — proving that the central allegations in Purina’s false
advertising lawsuit against them. Despite Blue Buffalo’s admission, no
mention was made about taking steps to recall the mislabeled pet foods,
nor to compensate the millions of consumers that purchased the falsely
labeled products.
Voodoo science performed in a highly sophisticated lab
Purina claims that testing of Blue Buffalo’s pet food were conducted in a “
highly sophisticated, independent lab“, while Blue Buffalo calls their testing “
junk science”
and claims the testing was performed with a rudimentary microscope
under less than optimal conditions with questionable methods.
Regardless, the results of testing and analysis reveal that, in some
instances, 9 out of 10 Blue Buffalo products tested contained poultry
by-product meal, even though the packaging indicated otherwise. Instead,
tests indicated the products contained several signature elements of
poultry by-product meal: eggshell, raw feather and leg scale. Further,
that quantities of grain were found in samples of Blue Buffalo’s pet
food that were labeled “grain-free.”
To learn more about each case, click on the case information below.
- Fisher et al v. The Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd. et al, Case No. 14-cv-5937, C. D. CA.
- Teperson et al v. The Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd et al, Case No. 14-cv-1682, S. D. CA.
- Delre et al v. Blue Buffalo Co., Ltd, Case No. 14-cv-768, D. CT.
- Renna et al v. Blue Buffalo Co., Ltd., Case No. 14-cv-833, D. CT.
- Mackenzie et al v. The Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd., Inc., Case No. 14-cv-80634, S. D. FL.
- Stone et al v. Blue Buffalo Company Ltd., Case No. 14-cv-520, S. D. IL.
- Keil et al v. Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd., Case No. 14-cv-880, E. D. MO.
- Hutchison et al v. Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd., Case No. 14-cv-1070, E. D. MO.
- Andacky et al v. The Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd., Case No. 14-cv-2938, E. D. NY.
SOURCE:
U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in re: Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd., Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation
