Campbell Soup Co., which has won a marketing dispute over its Kelsen baked snacks business in the US, has said it is looking to "protect" the division in a number of markets around the world.
This week, a US ad regulator backed Campbell's complaints over the advertising and labelling of Danisa butter cookies in the country.
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Speaking to just-food, Campbell said the US challenge was one of a series of ways it is looking to defend its Kelsen business, which sells baked snacks in over 80 markets.
"This is one of several channels we’re exploring to protect our Kelsen Group baked snacks business – we are working with government, legal and regulatory bodies worldwide," a Campbell spokesperson said.
Campbell filed "an unfair competition and infringement lawsuit" at an intellectual property court in Beijing against Danisa in January, the spokesperson revealed.
She added: "We’ve taken actions in China and the US, among other jurisdictions, against a number of different knock-off products."
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By GlobalDataYesterday (9 April), The National Advertising Division, a unit of industry self-regulatory body the Council of Better Business Bureaus, announced it had asked the US distributor of Danisa cookies to stop using a range of claims and Scandinavian imagery on biscuits sold in the US.
Campbell issued a complaint over a series of claims, including the Danisa biscuits, made by Indonesia's Mayora Group, were "traditional butter cookies".
The NAD said US regulations required any product labelled as butter cookies use only butter as a shortening ingredient.
According to the NAD, Campbell said testing by the Danish government, the US food giant's own laboratory and a third-party lab showed "a non-butter fat ingredient or, possibly, multiple non-butter fat ingredients, are present in the Danisa products".
Campbell also challenged claims including Danisa cookies were made to an "original Danish recipe", were "baked following the original recipe from Denmark" and were "produced and packed in Denmark".
The distributor, Takari International, argued it was "an innocent party", the NAD said. It added Takari had claimed it had purchased the product "without any knowledge regarding possible problems with content or package design and cannot be bound by the NAD’s inquiry and findings". The NAD continued: "Further, Takari asserted that any website or advertising challenged in the complaint constitute commercial speech protected under the First Amendment."
Nevertheless, the NAD said it has previously argued "catalogue retailers must have a reasonable basis for the advertising claims made for products sold through their catalogues". It added: "The same holds true for distributors."
Takari said it would remove Danisa’s advertisement from its website, would not promote the product at any trade shows nor through in-store displays it controls. The distributor said it would not in the future purchase the product with the current packaging and description, the NAD said.
