BREAKING: Blue Buffalo Responds to Purina Lawsuit

Read the latest letter to pet parents from the founder and chairman of the Blue Buffalo Company, in response to a lawsuit filed against them by Nestle Purina:

Dear Pet Parents,
This is to inform you of a recent, and highly relevant, development in our legal proceedings with the Nestle Purina Company. As some of you will recall from my previous letters, Nestle Purina, part of the $200 billion global food giant, sued Blue Buffalo on May 6th, claiming “Independent testing shows that Blue Buffalo is not being honest about its ingredients”. The very same day they started a highly sophisticated, multi-million dollar campaign on the Internet designed to damage Blue Buffalo’s reputation. This smear campaign, like their lawsuit, was based entirely on the findings of Nestle Purina’s so called “independent testing”. They promoted their mysterious test as having been performed by a highly sophisticated, independent lab, while refusing to disclose what it was and who had conducted it.
At that time I assured you that Blue Buffalo had never been dishonest about its ingredients. Our formulas never included the chicken by-product meal, corn or artificial preservatives that Nestle Purina claims to have found in our products and we never purchased even one ounce of those ingredients.
Given Nestle Purina’s total reliance on their “independent testing” as support for both their lawsuit and smear campaign, a reasonable person would have expected them to make a complete disclosure to the public of their testing procedure and protocols at the time they accused us of lying about our ingredients. Instead they took the opposite approach, and played legal games to keep their supposed scientific proof hidden from the public despite continuing to use it as “proof“ for their defamation of Blue Buffalo.
Now, after over four months of stonewalling, we made a motion in Court to force Nestle Purina to remove the veil of secrecy over their testing and have succeeded in making it public. While Nestle Purina is pretending like they’re disclosing it voluntarily, they fought our efforts to make their testing public for months. It’s now very clear why they fought so vigorously to keep it secret as it does not even come close to meeting the basic requirements of a scientific test, let alone being something to use as support to make their outrageous, malicious allegations. It turns out that what the $200 billion mega international corporation promoted as a highly sophisticated, independent lab was in reality an individual with dubious scientific credentials who works out of a lab in his home. His analysis was performed with a rudimentary microscope under less than optimal conditions with questionable methods and record keeping. All things considered, a very odd choice for a company with unlimited financial resources. Perhaps more respected organizations turned them down?
I invite you to read a critique of Nestle Purina’s “independent research” by a true leading expert in the field with a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering who advises both the FDA and the National Science Foundation.….simply click on the link below to access his report. After reading it, I think it will be crystal clear to any fair minded individual that Nestle Purina’s attack on Blue Buffalo’s honesty has absolutely no basis in fact. It’s simply a poorly disguised advertising campaign intended to harm a competitor whose ingredients are preferred by knowledgeable pet parents.
Knowing how weak their supposed scientific proof is, in order to continue to muddy the waters, Nestle Purina continues to try to salvage its case with new and unfounded allegations. We will continue to fight them in Court and respond accordingly.
My sincere thanks to all you pet parents who have continued to support us in the face of Nestle Purina’s unfounded assault on our Company’s integrity. We appreciate you more than you can imagine.
Wishing you and your pets the best.
Bill Bishop
Founder and Chairman

Blue Buffalo