As much as we want to be unabashed defenders of the food & beverage industry and all that it does, every once in a while somebody – usually some pinhead in marketing – puts out something that makes us say, “Now, wait a minute…”
Right now, the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a case in which Pom Wonderful – a past defendant in marketing-related court cases but in this case the protagonist -- has sued Coca-Cola claiming that 0.3 percent pomegranate juice, 0.2 percent blueberry juice and 0.1 percent raspberry juice (versus 99 percent apple and grape juices, which are cheaper) does not make for a "Pomegranate Blueberry Flavored Blend of 5 Juices” (see our story: Pom Wonderful, Coca-Cola at the Supreme Court).
And on Feb. 24, the National Advertising Div. of the Better Business Bureau closed a year-old complaint against Hershey Co. that its Brookside chocolates don't contain a shred of the acai, goji or pomegranate fruits promoted on former packaging.
I'm reasonably astute in the ways of food, I read labels pretty carefully and I'm a bit of a skeptic, but the packaging had me fooled. Last year I bought many packages of the "healthy" candies on the presumption that they contained acai, goji or pomegranate. Those were the words most prominent on the packages. Nowhere did I see "-flavored," even in tiny type. But that's all it was -- acai, goji or pomegranate flavors, some of it from those juices – with the fruity centers provided by pectin.
This year's new packaging fairly puts the words "Dark Chocolate" first and foremost and qualifies the variety to "pomegranate flavor," etc.
That's the domain of the Better Business Bureau and its Advertising Self-Regulatory Council. And by the way, it was Mars that filed the complaint. But the Supreme Court hearing a squabble between food companies? That may be a first.