Finally got around to reading Saturday's paper. While we'll
never know what the jury decided, we will see in the coming
months what effect the trial had on Splenda marketing.
NTY
May 12, 2007
Artificial Sweetener Makers Reach Settlement on Slogan
By LYNNLEY BROWNING
The makers of Equal and Splenda reached an undisclosed settlement
yesterday over Splenda’s contested slogan “made from sugar, so it
tastes like sugar,” ending a monthlong trial in which, just
moments earlier, a jury had reached a verdict.
As a result of the settlement, the verdict was not read to the court.
According to one person close to the matter, the emergence of the
verdict suggested that the jury might have found in favor of
Equal’s maker, Merisant.
The person spoke on condition he not be identified because
neither the terms of the settlement, which he called “sizable,”
nor the verdict was publicly disclosed.
Jurors were instructed by the presiding Judge Gene E. K. Pratter
not to disclose the verdict.
Merisant, the maker of Equal, sued McNeil Nutritionals, the maker
of Splenda, in Federal District Court in Philadelphia in 2004,
contending that Splenda had deceived millions of consumers by
deliberately creating the impression that Splenda was healthier
and natural because it started out with sugar, even though the
final product has no sugar.
Merisant had sought at least $176 million from McNeil, a division
of Johnson & Johnson.
It was not disclosed whether the settlement would require or
prompt Splenda’s maker to alter advertising slogans for its
sweetener, a move that could hurt sales at McNeil, Splenda’s maker.
The makers of the two artificial sweeteners released a brief
joint statement late yesterday saying that the details of the
settlement were confidential and that they would make no
additional comment. Lawyers and spokesmen for both companies
declined requests for comment.
The unusual lawsuit filed by Equal against Splenda — false
advertising claims do not typically go to trial — highlight the
fierce battle for leadership in the $1.5 billion artificial
sweetener market.
Splenda, introduced as a mass-market product in 2000, has rapidly
overtaken the one-time industry leader Equal and now has nearly
two-thirds of the artificial sweetener market in the United States.
Splenda’s core ingredient is a nonnutritive sweetener, sucralose,
that is manufactured in laboratories as a synthetic compound.
Although a sugar molecule is used in the process and despite its
similar-sounding name, sucralose is not the same thing as
sucrose, the technical name for pure table sugar.
Equal, also known as aspartame, and sold in a blue packet, has no
sugar in it at all; its maker has always marketed its product as
an artificial sweetener, not as something akin — or closer to —
real sugar, like Splenda does.
This week, lawyers for Equal argued before the jury that
Splenda’s maker knew consumers were confused about whether
Splenda actually contained sugar, but that they deliberately
sought to associate their product with sugar, rather than with
artificial sweeteners, according to notes provided by a spokesman
for Equal’s maker, Merisant.
Splenda argued during the trial, through an array of experts,
that it had never deceived consumers or set out to deceive them,
since the product did in fact start out with sugar.
Last Thursday, a French business court, the Commercial Court of
Paris, ruled in favor of a French subsidiary of Equal’s maker,
Merisant, and said that Splenda had intentionally confused
consumers with its advertising. The court, which found that
Splenda’s French subsidiary had violated French advertising and
consumer protection laws, ordered the subsidiary to cease its
claims that Splenda is made from sugar and tastes like sugar.
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