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A federal judge has ruled against Ben & Jerry’s and allowed a lawsuit alleging that the company doesn’t live up to its environmentally friendly messaging to move forward.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) filed suit in Washington in July arguing that the Vermont-based ice cream maker misled consumers to think its product is more environmental friendly than it really is, in violation of consumer protection laws. On Monday, Judge Neal Kravitz foiled Ben & Jerry’s efforts to get the case dismissed.
Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today announced that the District of Columbia Superior Court rejected Ben & Jerry’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit OCA brought against the Unilever-owned brand in July 2018 under the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA).
“We are pleased that the court agrees that Ben & Jerry’s can be held accountable for the claims it makes about its products, and how the production of those products impacts animal welfare and the environment,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s international director. “This is a major victory for millions of consumers who have been deceived by Ben & Jerry’s marketing claims.”
Despite calls from health professionals worldwide to curb the use of farm-animal antibiotics, Vermont’s conventional dairy industry — dominated by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) – continues to use the antimicrobial drugs extensively, including non-therapeutic uses to prevent diseases caused by the animal confinement and concentration. After numerous records requests and analysis, including eight years of antibiotic violation data obtained from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, we found a rising trend with on-farm antibiotic violations, a lax regulatory environment, and no plan – or even goal – to address the problem.
Vermont’s nonorganic dairy industry is all but ignoring the dire warnings from the World Health Organization to reduce overall antibiotic use in food production, a leading cause of antibiotic resistance, which makes the drugs less effective when necessary to combat human illnesses. While the WHO has called for a complete halt to using antibiotics as a prophylactic in food production– preventing rather than treating animal diseases — Vermont’s dairy industry, with the support of VAAFM regulators, continues to allow healthy cows to be routinely treated between lactations.
The world’s largest meat packer, JBS Tolleson, is recalling nearly 7 million pounds of beef after an investigation identified JBS as the common supplier of ground beef products sold to people who developed Salmonella Newport, a disease that causes fever and diarrhea, weakness, dyspnea and, potentially, sudden death.
As of October 4, 57 people in 16 states had been sickened by JBS beef.
If that’s not enough to make you swear off industrial factory farm beef, here’s more food for thought: There’s a good chance the JBS beef was contaminated because it contained a combination of cattle raised for beef, and dairy cows sent off for slaughter because they were too sick to produce milk.
These are harrowing times for the nearly 1,500 migrant workers laboring on Vermont’s largest dairy farms. These farmworkers, predominantly from Mexico, are forced to live in the shadows, where their farm bosses harbor them in exchange for long hours, low wages, and cheap housing. It’s a human rights stain on the state, allowing these migrant workers to live and be treated this way. And it continues because there’s a whole lot of “looking away” from the deep-rooted ugliness of this system, which has been described by human rights advocates as “close to slavery.”
Worse than looking away, with its implicit acceptance of the exploitation, is the complicit role Vermont’s dairy industry giants are playing to maximize their profits on the backs of this cheap labor. As the state’s near-billion-dollar-a-year ice cream and cheese corporations – Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Creamery – continue to pay less than the cost of production for its dairy supply, Vermont’s remaining 700-or-so dairy farms are forced to cut costs at every opportunity, particularly when it comes to labor. Gone are the days when these farm jobs were filled by neighbors and community members, as the danger, speed, scale and filth – coupled with poverty-level wages — has made it impossible to attract local workers.
Even the peaceful cows on their ice cream pints, silhouetted by green pastures and blue skies, give the impression that ice cream, or at least its milk, is a wholesome product you can feel good about buying. You, and many others, would probably be surprised to learn that this is very much a carefully crafted illusion.
The world’s largest meat and dairy corporations could become the planet’s worst climate polluters within the next few decades. At a time when the planet must dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, these meat and dairy giants are driving overconsumption by ramping up production and exports, despite public commitments that some of them have made to tackle climate change.
Splashed across the Ben & Jerry’s website are cartoon-like pictures of happy cows romping in green pastures. The cows, according to Ben & Jerry's marketing claims, live on farms that belong to the company's "Caring Dairy" program.
There’s a reason those cows are depicted by drawings, not actual photos—many of the real, live cows whose milk and cream are used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream products live on "Caring Dairy" farms that don't meet the program's standards. Worse yet, not all of milk and cream that goes into Ben & Jerry's even comes from "Caring Dairy" farms, even though the company claims otherwise.
Ben & Jerry’s goes to great lengths to create the perception that the Unilever-owned company “cares” deeply about the farmers who supply milk and cream for the brand, the cows raised on Vermont dairy farms, and the state of Vermont’s environment.
The company’s “Caring Dairy” program sounds like a dream-come-true for Vermont’s dairy farmers and dairy cows.
But it’s more like a nightmare, not only for many of the cows, but also for Vermont’s environment and for consumers who care about animal welfare.
Ben & Jerry’s and its parent, European food giant Unilever Plc, have engaged in deceptive marketing by misleading shoppers into thinking they’re buying an environmentally friendly treat. According to a lawsuit, the ice cream is made from milk sourced from the same kinds of farms as most other dairy products and the final product contains the pesticide glyphosate.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today filed suit against Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc., for deceptive labeling, marketing and sale of Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream products. The suit was filed in D.C. Superior Court under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act.
“Unilever reportedly spent more than $9 billion on advertising in 2017 alone,” said OCA International Director, Ronnie Cummins. “A significant portion of that was spent to create the false perception that Ben & Jerry’s is committed to a clean environment and high animal welfare standards. Unilever knows those values foster brand loyalty and also allow the company to charge a premium.”
“Ben & Jerry’s decades-old practice of sourcing dairy ingredients from conventional dairy operations has led to a water pollution crisis in Vermont. There is nothing socially or environmentally responsible about that.”
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