• james
• Sep 12,2008
• In: Health & Fitness

Dannon Sued over Probiotic Yogurt Claims

Branding and word of mouth can have an exponential effect on the performance and success of their intended target. Sometimes these effects can be positive, but often times they are negative and misleading.

Trish Weiner, a California woman has finally said she’s had enough. She is suing her parents for the emotional scarring caused by years of teasing as a result of being hampered with the last name Weiner. Just kidding, but she is suing yogurt manufacturer Dannon after patiently enduring her two week trial of Activia yogurt and still waiting for the big poop.

A California consumer has filed a proposed class-action suit against The Dannon Company, alleging the company’s claims that its probiotic yogurt offers clinically and scientifically-proven health benefits are false.

“Deceptive advertising has enabled Dannon to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ordinary yogurt at inflated prices to responsible, health conscious consumers,” Timothy Blood, the lead attorney handling the case, claimed.

Dannon Activia contains the probiotic culture bifidus regularis, which is supposedly “clinically proven to help regulate the digestive system when eaten daily for two weeks.” DanActive is supposed to have a similar effect on the immune system as a benefit from it’s L. casei immunitas probiotic culture. The tag-line for that product is: “Each bottle of DanActive™ contains over 10 billion cultures and has been clinically proven to help strengthen your body’s defenses.”

The class action lawsuit alleges that these claims are intentionally misleading, unsubstantiated, and essentially concocted for the sole purpose of influencing the health conscious consumer to buy a line of yogurt that is 30% more expensive than similarly sized portions of yogurt that do not tout the probiotic claims.

You might be asking: What is a Probiotic?
According to The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) probiotics are “live microorganisms administered in adequate amounts which confer a beneficial health effect on the host.”

Being that all the studies on these strains that the marketing campaign was based on were Dannon sponsored, and that digestive health and immune function are not easily monitored by the average consumer, it’s not hard to see why someone saw a few red flags. If the lawsuit is successful, we could see Dannon forced to not only reimburse American consumers to the tune of 300 million dollars, but also to put out a new marketing campaign correcting the perception of the scientific benefits of their products.

Dannon representatives had this to say:

“The scientifically substantiated benefits of Dannon’s products are confirmed not only by the scientific journals that have reviewed and published the findings — which are made available on the company’s Web sites for any and all to read — but also by the millions of highly satisfied consumers who enjoy Dannon’s products.”

At the end of the day, is it really any big surprise that the advertising in the grocery store is bullshit? As we become a more health-conscious community (a nice way of saying vain) the advertising companies will continue to play on it and they will continue to make money. Who hasn’t paid more for a product that already had natural ingredients because the label said organic, or tried to “health up” waffle fries with the lycopene in Heinz ketchup. I especially love the suddenly full of antioxidants Liptin high-fructose-corn-syrup iced-green-tea-flavored beverage.

It’s not that these claims are always untrue. Green tea does have, and has always had antioxidants, and likewise lycopene will be found in any product containing tomatoes, and there are many people who believe that probiotic cultures do have health benefits. It’s more that the benefits of these ingredients are overstated and they are used as a big marketing flag to rally behind and separate well-branded products from their functionally equivalent competition.

One of the most astounding issues from the Dannon suit is that the two probiotic cultures in question can probably be found in any yogurt. Dannon didn’t invent these cultures, they just found them in their yogurt, gave them names that coordinated with their supposed benefits, and then whored them out in grocers across the land. I’m glad to see an educated, albeit constipated, consumer stick it back to one of the big companies. You go… Weiner.

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