Blue Buffalo Hit With Another False Ad Class Action Lawsuit

Yet another false advertisement class action lawsuit has been filed against Blue Buffalo Pet Products Inc. in Massachusetts federal court. The complaint claims the company falsely claimed that Blue Buffalo cat and food is manufactured without preservatives or animal byproducts.

According to the Blue Buffalo class action lawsuit, lead plaintiff Sarah Jacobs claims that the Blue Buffalo “true blue promise” makes false claims that their pet food is made without artificial preservatives, poultry byproduct, and corn or soy proteins when, Jacobs alleges, the cat and dog foods do in fact contain all these ingredients.

Furthermore, this Blue Buffalo “true blue promise” appears on the company’s website and is featured on the labels and packaging for their pet food products, the class action lawsuit says.

Jacobs also alleges that consumers who chose to purchase Blue Buffalo cat and dog food agreed to pay a premium for these pet food products based on the company’s alleged false claims, allegedly violating both federal and state laws.

The Blue Buffalo false ad class action lawsuit claims: “Blue Buffalo Products commanded a price premium over other pet food products. As an example, defendant’s Life Protection Formula Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe for Adult Dogs commands a 55 percent price premium, per pound, over a competing product [and] defendant’s Wilderness Chicken Recipe for Adult Dogs commands a 94 percent premium, per pound.”

In defense of their higher pet food prices, the company’s website features an exclusive section titled “what’s in our food and why,” which details how Blue Buffalo consciously chose to nix the use of byproducts, corn, wheat, soy and artificial ingredients, and how this choice makes it more expensive to produce these pet food products.

In support of her claims in this false advertisement class action lawsuit, Jacobs cites a letter posted on Blue Buffalo’s website on October 2014 written by Bill Bishop, the founder and chairman of this pet food company. In this letter, Bishop allegedly admitted that Blue Buffalo used poultry byproducts in its dog and cat food for a time.

In her Blue Buffalo class action lawsuit, Jacobs is seeking damages that total more than $5 million in order to compensate herself and other consumers who purchased Blue Buffalo pet foods in the four years preceding the filing of this suit.

Jacob’s complaint is not the only false ad class action lawsuit filed against the pet food company. Back in May 2014, an Illinois consumer and rival pet food company Nestlé Purina PetCare Co. filed separate Blue Buffalo class action lawsuits, alleging Blue Buffalo made false claims regarding the contents of its cat and dog food products.

A few other class action lawsuits were filed after Nestlé published its own research, which independently tested Blue Buffalo products to determine their contents. According to the study, Blue Buffalo’s pet food contained all the animal byproducts and other ingredients the company had promised consumers they excluded from the food. Furthermore, Nestlé and consumers’ Blue Buffalo false ad class action lawsuits have cited emails between the pet food company and ingredient suppliers, heavily suggesting the company was aware that their “true blue promise” was false.

In October 2014, seven consumer-based class action lawsuits and Nestlé’s complaint were consolidated in multidistrict litigation in Missouri federal court. Since then, Blue Buffalo has been fighting this MDL and the complaints consolidated in it, and has gone as far as to hit Nestlé with a counter suit earlier this year.

The plaintiff is represented by Edward F. Haber and Patrick J. Vallely of Shapiro Haber & Urmy LLP, and Robert C. Schubert, Miranda P. Kolbe and Noah Schubert of Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe LLP.

The Blue Buffalo False Advertisement Class Action Lawsuit is Jacobs v. Blue Buffalo Pet Products Inc., Case No.  1:15-cv-13417, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

UPDATE: Blue Buffalo has announced that it will pay $32 million to settle the pet food class action lawsuits.

UPDATE 2: On Jan. 11, 2018, Top Class Actions viewers started receiving checks in the mail from the Blue Buffalo pet food ingredients class action settlement worth as much as $736.54. Congratulations to everyone who filed a claim and got PAID!