Dog Food Wars: Purina Sues Blue Buffalo
If you felt a tremor in the pet food world recently it was due to one of the giants in the industry losing patience with one of the smaller brands and rousing itself to action. For several years Blue Buffalo has been advertising to “pet parents” that its pet foods were better than those foods from some of the big pet food companies. It seems that one of those big companies – Purina – has a problem with Blue Buffalo’s claims.
Visit this site for Purina’s explanation of the lawsuit.
Blue Buffalo’s response: https://www.bluebuffalo.com/news/nestle-purina-response-2
Blue has made a number of claims in their TV commercials, print advertising, and online saying that the “leading” pet food companies use ingredients such as corn, poultry by-products, and other things that Blue never uses. They invited consumers to visit their web site to compare their current pet food to Blue. Specific brands are listed for comparison, including a number of Purina products, as well as Hill’s Science Diet, Royal Canin, and others. According to Blue, their foods never contain chicken (or poultry) by-product meals, artificial colors, flavors or preservatives and NO corn, wheat or soy.
First Hill’s Pet Nutrition, the manufacturer of Hill’s Science Diet, took exception to Blue’s advertising. They filed a complaint with the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. In March of this year NAD found the advertisements of Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd., manufacturer of Blue Brand Pet Food Products, to be falsely disparaging to competing pet food companies. NAD recommended that Blue modify the claims in their advertising. Blue has agreed to modify their True Blue Test and plans to appeal the remaining NAD recommendations.
This was the second time that Blue’s advertising was challenged and found to be deceptive. In 2008 NAD reviewed the company’s claims about their pet foods and recommended that claims about the products being of superior nutritional value, containing “human grade” ingredients, and containing “NO animal by-products” in certain foods be modified or discontinued. After appealing the decision, Blue Buffalo subsequently removed claims about containing “NO animal by-products” when it was inaccurate.
You can read more about the NAD decisions here.
Now, Purina is suing Blue after having a number of Blue’s pet foods tested by an independent laboratory. Pet owners who feed Blue foods will be unhappy to learn that the test results showed that some of their foods contained poultry by-product meal and corn. Some foods marketed as “grain free” actually contained rice hulls.
As Purina points out, the suit is not over the quality of the ingredients in the foods. Purina uses poultry by-product meal and corn in some of their foods so they are hardly in a position to disparage these ingredients. The suit is about Blue’s alleged deception in using these ingredients which, of course, are not listed on the labels of the foods and are completely contrary to the company’s advertising about the food. Blue’s entire marketing strategy is based on convincing “pet parents” that the company is being truthful about their food and that they are providing nutritious food for your companion – unlike those “big name” pet food companies.
Blue Buffalo denies the accusations and says they will counter sue Purina. According to Blue, Purina’s lawsuit is a case of David vs. Goliath. Blue is a small, successful company that has been thriving and that is why Purina is targeting them. Not because they have engaged in false advertising.
Blue uses a third party to manufacture their foods and the company says that if there was a problem with some of their foods, it could have been due to something unusual that occurred during processing. They referred to the results from Purina’s labs as “weird science” and voodoo. Purina scoffed at the response from Blue.
This is an important case in the pet food world. Purina has been one of the favorite targets of the “natural” pet food set because they use corn, poultry by-products, and other more traditional pet food ingredients as opposed to pet foods that use ingredients that claim to be similar to human foods. A victory for Purina in this case could cause many of the “natural” pet foods to back off on some of their claims of being superior to more traditional pet foods. Or at least they might be more careful about checking that their ingredients match their advertising. Clearly there are pet food companies with deep pockets who are willing to have a competitor’s products tested to see if they are telling the truth about their ingredients.
The pet food industry in the United States is worth some $22 billion annually, and growing. Market share is valuable. Even a company as large as Purina cannot afford to have a small competitor continually poking at it with negative advertising.
Purina is owned by Swiss-based Nestle S.A., the largest food corporation in the world. Nearly all of their pet food sold in the United States is manufactured at their own plants in the U.S. Blue Buffalo is based in Wilton, Connecticut. They do not have their own manufacturing facilities. According to the last information we could find (from 2012), Blue’s foods are co-packed by Ainsworth, CJ Foods, and Simmons.
I was feeding Blue Buffalo dry for cats, learned after my cat had lots of Urinary crystals that it has lots of bone in it. Cat hospital Vet told me the practice is seeing lots of cats on Blue Buffalo with these issues due to the bone content. There went my theory of pay now or pay more later, I could of been feeding cheap Friskies.
In reply to Anne Broomall
My male cat 6 years old, has developed a bladder urinary crystal and has a lot of white and red blood cells in his urinary track. The crust has dissolve, crystal remains. We are trying to dissolve the crystal rather than an evasive operation. I will know within 3 weeks, once again another x-ray, sample of his urine and blood work. This was caused by dry food from Blue Buffalo. Previously for 5 years I was feeding him Arcana-Orijen red bag, had no problems. I started to feed him Blue Buffalo a year ago.
Regrets and quilt. I have spent $800.00 so far, its not the money, the torment my cat is going thru. Every time they need a urine sample, they SO wet food, or SO dry food for the rest of his life. Please do not buy their products if you love your furry baby. I would not want to see a dog or cat go thru this. They lied with their ingredients and were very well aware of their low quality ingredients. My thanks to Purina for in notifying the public of their wrong doings. Please spread the word and give the web address of Purina law suit. Thanks to all, our furries babies need a voice spread the word, even if your friends do not have animals, they may know someone who does. Once again Purina,
thank you.
sorry I made an error what I meant to say is
Every time they need a urine sample, they need to inject a tube draining the urine from the bladder out of the penis. This is extremely painful. He will need to be feed SO, CD, wet food for the rest of his life, which he hates. We have put him on Urinary SO dry food.
I am ready to start a petition to Blue Buffalo. Anyone with me?
i will i hate liers
We were feeding our dog Blue Buffalo Duck, dry, and in the beginning he was doing OK but by the second bag he would have periods of not eating at all, diareah and vomiting. I like to research when there are issues so I started looking at the ingredients. I called Blue Buffalo and they confirmed my findings – our dog was getting sick because this particular formula has been “improved” with higher protein. He couldn’t handle the high content. The store i bought it at gave me a full refund. I have switched him to the lamb formula and he is a happy camper! No more problems.
So looked up Blue Health bars because for the 2nd time my shitzuu has gotten sick..won’t eat, tail between his legs. the 1st time i did not associate it,,,, now i have; this is a bag i put away and only use when i run out of the other treats and can’t get to the store,
…and yet Blue Buffalo gets a 3 star rating. Really new.dogfood.guru? Not sure what to believe anymore.
In August, BB opened their own plant in Joplin, Mo. They now make all of their dry kibble for dogs and cats there.
I’d just like to share my experience with Blue Buffalo Wilderness, dry formula. I had always fed my dog Purina Beneful. After reading all the horror stories about the Purina I switched him to BBW. He stopped throwing up, he stopped shedding, my neighbors quit accusing me of not feeding him enough, and he asks for food now instead of just leaving it in his dish until he was so hungry that he ate it to survive.
My best friend had to be put to sleep after weeks of one health problem after another. After several vet visits, specialist for ultra sounds and neurologist for lame limbs, he just never improved and each week something new would pop up. Then the seizers started. Long story short urinary crystals was on that long list. I am not sure Blue Buffalo had anything to do with it but after hearing so many others explain what has happened to their best friends I feel like kicking my own butt. How did I not learn about this sooner? I thought I was doing right by feeding him what I thought was a top product. I never once questioned what I feed him. After all I already went down this road with another one of my best buds. What in the HECK is a person to do? Who in the HECK are we to believe? Even the Dog Food Guru recommends BB. To Ronald who posted 2/24/15, the last bag I bought was the wilderness brand my first one cause I got a raise and I could afford it, and that seems to be where all this started. In November 2014 my 12yr old silky terrier was acting like he was 3yrs old, two months later DEAD!
Not to sound insensitive, but…Your dog was 12…That’s pretty “up there” in age. Why would you change his diet after 12 years, anyway?
I have an 11 month old Female Husky. We started her on blue 3 months ago. After 3 weeks of starting her we noticed she was in great deal of pain when she used the bathroom. At first I thought she had a UTI. I took her to the vet had them take a urine and stool sample this way they can hear when she starts to cry and how loud she yelps. The vet said by the way she cried she believed that she had a serious UTI. They had me start her on antibiotics immediately. 2 days later after they tested the urine I received a call saying to stop the antibiotics because they found very little trace of Bactria but her red blood cell count was very high. That call scared me so I started questioning what else could it be. I brought her in for x-rays and after what seemed to be forever we figured the food was the cause. Under vet directions and daily visits I took her off of Blue cold turkey and put her on Natural Balance Wild Pursuit. After 2 weeks of diarrhea and my poor baby crying every 2 hours from her pain she is better than ever. She has no more pain, her urine levels are normal she is at a healthy weight and energy levels are back. The food made the difference for her.