topic Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents in Community Chat

Blue Buffalo Proponents

Kachina624 — Wed, 07 May 2014 20:20:38 GMT

Thought you might be interested in this letter from Purina concerning a lawsuit against the makers of Blue Buffalo.

"Dear Pet Owner,

Purina believes that honesty is the most important ingredient in the relationship between pet owners and pet food manufacturers, so that pet owners can have trust in the food they choose for their pet.

In the interest of ensuring pet owners understand what is in the pet food they buy, on May 6, Purina filed a lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court in St. Louis against The Blue Buffalo Company Ltd., for false advertising. We took this action because we believe that Blue Buffalo is not being honest about the ingredients in its pet food.

Here are some facts we’d like you to know:

• Blue Buffalo’s promotion, advertising and packaging repeatedly and unequivocally state that its pet food products contain “NO Chicken/Poultry By-Product Meals.” As documented in our lawsuit , however, testing conducted by an independent laboratory revealed that several of Blue Buffalo’s top-selling “Life Protection” pet food products actually contain substantial amounts of poultry by-product meal.

• Independent testing also shows that Blue Buffalo “LifeSource Bits” contain poultry by-product meal and corn. In addition, several Blue Buffalo products promoted as “grain-free” actually contain rice hulls, despite Blue Buffalo stating on its website that its “grain-free” products will “free your pet from the grains and glutens that cause allergic reactions in some dogs.”

• Our lawsuit follows decisions against Blue Buffalo by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. In March 2014, NAD found Blue Buffalo’s advertisements to be misleading and disparaging against competitors’ products. NAD also found Blue Buffalo’s advertising deceptive in a 2008 decision that recommended its superiority claims be modified and its “NO Animal By-Products” claims be discontinued when referencing pet food products that actually do contain animal by-products, such as fish meal, lamb meal and/or liver.

For more than 85 years, Purina has been putting pets first and raising the standards for pet nutrition – from innovative research, to food safety, to sustainable practices. We are invested in the quality of our food because we are a company of pet lovers. Our principles have guided us to take this action to stop misleading and deceptive advertising aimed at pet owners. We encourage you to learn more about our case, Nestlé Purina PetCare Company v. Blue Buffalo Company Ltd., Civil Case 4:14-cv-00859 and the NAD decisions. View the press release.

At Purina, what goes in the bag goes on the label.

– From the Pet Lovers at Purina

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

mewsmomtoo — Wed, 07 May 2014 21:58:24 GMT

Thank you for posting - just yesterday I was thinking of making the switch to Blue Buffalo. I guess the only way to really know what is in your cat's food is to make it yourself

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

CrazyDaisy — Wed, 07 May 2014 22:50:03 GMT

Blue Buffalo has issued a response statement to the Purina lawsuit. It reads…

Dear Pet Parents,

I’m writing to you about the lawsuit Nestle Purina filed today alleging that Blue Buffalo has lied to you about the ingredients in our pet foods. We categorically deny all of these false allegations and will aggressively defend the integrity of our brand and our products. It is an easy thing to make unsubstantiated claims, put them in a lawsuit and then publish them all over the web to disparage and defame a company. It is quite another thing to prove those allegations.

Please be assured that unlike Nestle Purina:

Blue Buffalo does not use chicken by-product meal or poultry by-product meal in any of our products
Blue Buffalo does not use ground corn in any of our products
Blue Buffalo does not use artificial preservatives in any of our products

We will prove these and other matters in the court with good reliable evidence, and we look forward to disproving the voodoo science that Nestle Purina relied on to support their outrageous allegations.

We’re disappointed to see one of the largest food companies in the world with over $100 billion in sales launching such a baseless lawsuit against a family-run company and attempting to prosecute it on the Internet. In some ways this attack by Nestle Purina is not too surprising, since pet parents have demonstrated their preference by selecting true natural foods like Blue Buffalo instead of the by-product and corn-based pet foods Nestle Purina has been selling for years. In fact, their inability to compete successfully with natural pet foods is the key motivation for this frivolous lawsuit.

My sons and I founded Blue Buffalo with the mission of bringing transparency to pet foods, and made the True Blue Promise to our pet parents. Clearly, some of our major competitors, who have built their business using lower cost ingredients, are upset. We will always stand behind our promise and our products.

We have a saying at Blue Buffalo: “When we’re right, we fight.” We look forward to seeing Nestle Purina in court.

Sincerely,

Bill Bishop
Founder and Chairman
Blue Buffalo

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

conlt — Thu, 08 May 2014 01:34:51 GMT

My Vet recommended against Blue Buffalo a couple of years ago. At the time she said she there had been problems and there was not enough research on the dog food yet.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

Kachina624 — Thu, 08 May 2014 06:00:38 GMT

Blue Buffalo gives my dogs gas. Bad!

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

Mominohio — Thu, 08 May 2014 12:22:59 GMT

Thanks for posting this information. Just another instance to remind us that what we see in advertising may or may not be accurate, and if it is important to us, we'd better try to research it more thoroughly, and not depend solely on the manufacturer for information.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

CrazyDaisy — Thu, 08 May 2014 12:47:56 GMT

Regardless what dog food you like, you have to wonder why Purina felt the need for the lawsuit and Internet campaign. In my opinion big companies cannot do natural products well, there is always pressure to cut corners and save money.

Several years ago Purina purchased Innova/EVO brands to get into the natural pet food market. There were many recalls after the purchase. Everyone I knew who used these products (including myself) have moved on to other brands.

So I would guess Blue Buffalo is just the first of the natural pet foods that Purina is targeting. They have the resources to start putting the smaller competitors out of business.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

okBlonde — Thu, 08 May 2014 14:28:40 GMT

My vet doesn't like the type of AAFCO feeding trials that BB uses. I tried BB with my cats; neither one would eat the LifeSource Bits and my former feral became seriously constipated after eating this.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

pistolino — Thu, 08 May 2014 15:46:35 GMT

My dogs hated BB and I suppose that turned out to be a good thing. They would actually pick out the LifeSource bits and throw them on the floor, refused to eat them.

While I don't care for Purina's low-end dog foods, their higher end brands are okay.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

CrazyDaisy — Thu, 08 May 2014 16:58:51 GMT

On 5/8/2014 Indy-Blonde2 said:
My vet doesn't like the type of AAFCO feeding trials that BB uses. I tried BB with my cats; neither one would eat the LifeSource Bits and my former feral became seriously constipated after eating this.

AAFCO feeding trial standards are very loose. Your vet must have spent a good amount of time to research all the pet foods on the market in order to make that statement.

I am more concerned with the pet food meeting the AAFCO nutritional standards using quality ingredients.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

okBlonde — Thu, 08 May 2014 18:23:56 GMT

On 5/8/2014 CrazyDaisy said:
On 5/8/2014 Indy-Blonde2 said:
My vet doesn't like the type of AAFCO feeding trials that BB uses. I tried BB with my cats; neither one would eat the LifeSource Bits and my former feral became seriously constipated after eating this.

AAFCO feeding trial standards are very loose. Your vet must have spent a good amount of time to research all the pet foods on the market in order to make that statement.

I am more concerned with the pet food meeting the AAFCO nutritional standards using quality ingredients.

He does spend a lot of time with pet nutrition. He attends several seminars on this every year, since he sold his practice to a local "chain" - he has other vets in with him now so he's not at the office 24/7 like he was forced to be in the past.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

Kachina624 — Thu, 08 May 2014 20:50:40 GMT

You don't have to spend a lot of time research dog foods. There are several websites which rate the nutritional value. You can then go to somewhere like Amazon and compare the prices.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

betteb — Fri, 09 May 2014 02:47:38 GMT

Miss Kitty wouldn't touch Blue Buffalo.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

catlvr — Fri, 09 May 2014 03:17:46 GMT

I have no idea what the beef is here but I will share that we adopted three siblings in December of 2012 and by the summer of 2013 two of them developed stomatitis and as a result of aggressive treatment for same one of them ended up diabetic. We had them on prescription food but when Rudolph became diabetic I looked for a food they could all eat and be ok for him. Blue Buffalo chicken has been awesome for them. Rudolph actually recovered from his med induce diabetes and because of their sensitive gums I wouldn't feed them anything else.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

Moonlady — Fri, 09 May 2014 18:14:42 GMT

Our cat loves Blue Buffalo (duck recipe). I alternate, and this will continue to be in the rotation.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

elated — Fri, 09 May 2014 21:19:46 GMT

My dog has been on Blue Buffalo for over eight years. He is in excellent health. He loves the food. They have now come out with Blue Buffalo Chunky Stew and he loves this food. He has had no problems. I do not believe all the hype that comes out about certain dog food. My dog lets me know if it is agreeable with him. So far, so good. I give him the healthy weight dog food in chicken.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

yellowBeetle — Fri, 09 May 2014 23:43:03 GMT

Our kitty eats Blue Buffalo and just loves it! Feed him a combo of dry and wet. It is a bit more expensive than Purina and other grocery store brands. The main person we dealt with at the shelter where we got our cat recommended BB as the best food on the market. I did lots of online reading about various cat foods when we adopted him and read many glowing reviews of BB. Highly recommend it.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

Lovemyboots — Wed, 14 May 2014 21:32:39 GMT

I was just getting ready to ask a question of everyone here about how they felt about Blue Buffalo food since I heard about the law suit against them. I feed my little one the life protection & have been thinking of changing anyway because he has just never really cared for it. Now back to the old problem of what to buy for him! Any suggestions would be really appreciated!

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

conlt — Wed, 14 May 2014 23:20:02 GMT

On 5/8/2014 Indy-Blonde2 said:
My vet doesn't like the type of AAFCO feeding trials that BB uses. I tried BB with my cats; neither one would eat the LifeSource Bits and my former feral became seriously constipated after eating this.

My Vet also complained about the research with Blue Buffalo. She said there were problems and not to use it. I had tried it before I saw her though and mine would not eat those little nutrition balls.

Re: Blue Buffalo Proponents

BornToShop — Wed, 14 May 2014 23:49:15 GMT

Now I'm really confused. I have had my pets (cats & dogs) on Science Diet for the past 11 years. Impeccable health check-ups, no illnesses. Then the A/C man came to repair our A/C and wouldn't you know...he was horrified that I was feeding my darlings SD. He swore by BB; more energy, less poop, etc. I was just about ready to start the switch when I read this post. Maybe I shouldn't fix something that isn't broke???