WASHINGTON—Substantiation is a requirement for health claims, even when they're made by a company as big as Kellogg's. On June 3, FTC modified an April 2009 settlement with Kellogg Co., related to health claims the Battle Creek, Mich.-based company was making for its Frosted Mini-Wheats. The expanded settlement takes care of charges the cereal producer was making unsubstantiated and misleading immune health claims for Rice Krispies cereal.
The original case concerned national advertising claims touting the ability of Frosted Mini-Wheats to improve children’s attentiveness by nearly 20 percent, as shown in clinical studies. However, FTC reported the study did not show such results in children who ate the cereal for breakfast and, further, that comparative claims about cognitive function in children who didn’t eat breakfast were also false. The settlement barred Kellogg’s from making deceptive or misleading cognitive health claims for Kellogg’s breakfast foods and snack foods and barred the company from misrepresenting any tests or studies regarding any morning or snack food product.
In the current case, FTC charged Kellogg’s with making unsubstantiated and misleading claims about the ability of Rice Krispies cereal to “support your child’s immunity” and promoting the inclusion of antioxidants and nutrients. Kellogg has agreed to expand the 2009 settlement order, which now prohibits the company from making claims about any health benefit of any food unless the claims are backed by scientific evidence and not misleading.
The Commission voted unanimously to modify the 2009 settlement order; two commissioners issued a separate joint statement taking Kellogg to task. Commissioner Julie Brill and Chairman Jon Leibowitz stated their concerns that the company was negotiating with FTC to settle the earlier allegations even as it was developing the Rice Krispies campaign, which launched in July 2009, that led to the June 2010 modification. In part, their statement noted: “The company clearly has the means and ability to carefully test its children’s food products to determine if the products in fact provide health benefits for kids. We are also confident that Kellogg has the wherewithal to carefully develop truthful and nonmisleading advertising about such health benefits. … We hope that the Commission action announced today communicates to industry that it has an obligation to be honest with the public.”