The Blue Buffalo Company Ltd. officially filed a lawsuit against Nestlé Purina PetCare Company on May 14, 2014. The lawsuit, in response to a lawsuit filed by Purina against Blue Buffalo, claims defamation, unfair competition, false advertising and violations of trade practice statutes.
More specifically, the complaint states that Purina has blanketed the media with blatantly false ads about Blue Buffalo’s ingredients and malicious attacks on Blue Buffalo’s integrity. Blue Buffalo seeks injunctive relief, corrective advertising and damages "occasioned by defendants’ false and deceptive advertising campaign," according to the company.
"In our lawsuit we demand that Nestle Purina be held accountable for their actions, and that they stop their carefully orchestrated PR campaign designed to erode the trust that pet parents place in our BLUE brand," said Blue Buffalo Founder and Chairman Bill Bishop. "Product quality has always been at the center of everything we do at Blue Buffalo, so we are not about to let Nestle Purina make derogatory and unsubstantiated claims about our company, our people and our products."
The company said that while the matter is now in the courts, Blue Buffalo intends to continue defending its integrity and product quality. "[Litigation] is not the way Blue Buffalo likes to do business, said Bishop. "We’d much prefer an environment of transparency in which pet parents know the ingredients of every petfood, and decide for themselves which one they want to feed their dog or cat."
The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis under the case caption Blue Buffalo Company, Ltd. v. Nestle Purina Pet Care Company, and John Does 1 – 10.