Blue Buffalo responds to Purina statement on ingredients

Blue Buffalo has responded to a press release that Purina issued May 7, 2015, after Blue Buffalo told a court that that a “substantial” and “material” portion of Blue Buffalo pet food sold to consumers contained poultry byproduct meal, despite advertising claims to the contrary.
The letter to Blue Buffalo’s customers, posted on its website, reads, in full:
“Dear Pet Parents:
“We fully understand your concern with this topic, but you should know that the recent press release by Nestle Purina is simply the latest attack in their year-long smear campaign against Blue Buffalo.
“In October of last year, we informed you that a supplier of ingredients to us and many other well-known brands of pet foods had sent chicken meal to some of their customers that contained poultry by-product meal. We said at the time that, as a result, some of our food could include this mislabeled ingredient, that we had stopped buying ingredients from this facility and that we had reached out to the FDA.
“Just recently, this former supplier made additional disclosures in legal proceedings that showed that a substantial proportion of its shipments to our contract manufacturing facilities prior to May 2014 were, in fact, mislabeled.
“In view of this new information, this past Wednesday, May 6, 2015, we informed the Court of our conclusion that a material amount of our dry foods manufactured with mislabeled ingredients shipped prior to May 2014 had been impacted, and requested permission to bring a claim against this former supplier and others involved for intentionally mislabeling ingredients and unjustly enriching themselves. The Court immediately granted our request.”
On May 6, 2014, Purina filed a lawsuit against Blue Buffalo for false advertising after testing revealed the presence of poultry byproduct meal in some of Blue Buffalo’s top-selling pet foods. Blue Buffalo’s CEO responded by immediately claiming the testing was “voodoo science” and assuring its customers that “Blue Buffalo does not use chicken byproduct meal or poultry byproduct meal in any of our products.”