HUL wins ice cream ad lawsuit against Amul in Bombay high court

Bombay high court granted HUL’s plea for an injunction against advertisements that Amul began airing in March

A single-judge bench of the Bombay high court granted HUL’s plea for an injunction against the advertisements that Amul began airing in March. 

Mumbai: Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) on Friday won a lawsuit it filed in the Bombay high court against the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), owner of the Amul brand, for airing ads that it said disparaged frozen desserts.

HUL, India’s largest packaged consumer products maker, produces the Kwality Wall’s brand of frozen desserts and ice-creams.

A single-judge bench comprising justice S.J. Kathawalla granted HUL’s plea for an injunction against the advertisements that Amul began airing in March. The court also denied GCMMF’s plea for a stay on the order.

The plea was granted on grounds that the ads disparaged the entire category of frozen desserts in which Kwality Wall’s is the leader.

“This court having come to the conclusion that defendant No. 1 is guilty of disparaging the rival product, i.e. frozen desserts by making false statements of facts with regard to the same and also indulging in a negative campaign and also asking the consumers not to have frozen desserts but instead have the product of defendant No.1, i.e. Amul ice-cream, which is not permissible in law, the question of granting any stay on the order does not arise. The application for stay is therefore rejected,” justice Kathawalla said.

“This would mean that the court has asked Amul to stop airing the advertisement effective immediately,” said Nishad Nadkarni, associate partner at Khaitan and Co. and advisor to HUL in the case.

Justice Kathawalla also refused to suggest changes to the ads, saying that “the disparaging manner in which the impugned TVCs are made/prepared, it is in any event not possible to direct/order/suggest any modification/s to the same”.

“We are pleased that the Honourable Bombay high court while injuncting Amul’s advertisement has agreed with HUL’s contention that Amul’s advertisement is false, misleading consumers and disparages frozen desserts,” Sudhir Sitapati, executive director-refreshments, HUL, said in an emailed statement.

“Kwality Wall’s products are made with milk/milk solids and do not contain vanaspati. In fact, our frozen dessert products use milk without cholesterol to offer healthy and exciting choices to consumers,” he added.

GCMMF managing director R.S. Sodhi did not respond to a request for comment.

In March, Amul launched an ad campaign for its Amul brand of ice-creams that emphasized the difference between ice-creams (made from milk fat) and frozen desserts (made from vegetable oil). These definitions based on ingredients are as per Food Safety and Standards Authority of India norms.

Amul’s ads urged customers to choose ice-creams over frozen desserts, claiming that the latter were made with vanaspati tel or vegetable oil.

Soon after, HUL filed a lawsuit in the Bombay high court asking that Amul be stopped from airing the ads and ordered to pay damages.

HUL argued that as Kwality Wall’s was the largest frozen dessert brand in India, it was directly hit by Amul’s advertisement even though the films did not refer to it by name.

CII holds workshop for food safety supervisors

Nagpur: The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) held a training programme for food safety supervisors in Nagpur on Friday.

Similar programmes on food safety training and certification schemes of FSSAI were held earlier in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi. The programmes are part of CII-Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan, an all-India food safety campaign to strengthen action on 'safe food for all' through awareness and capacity building programmes.

It is being supported by Mission Health, the CSR initiative of GSK Consumer Healthcare. The programme held at Nagpur was aimed at small and medium industries, said a press release issued by CII.

The course facilitated knowledge and practical learning, in a highly interactive mode covering spects of hygienic and sanitary practices for food general manufacturing, under Schedule 4, Part II of Food Safety and Standard Act, Rule and Regulations, said the CII release.

Studies have shown that an appreciable percentage of food-borne diseases can be attributed to poor sanitation and food hygiene, including poor personal hygiene and contamination of equipment and environment.

As a result, training of personnel in food business is a pre-requisite for ensuring food safety and hygiene. The ultimate objective of the training programme was to fulfil the need of having at least one trained and certified food safety supervisor in every food business so that the individual in turn train others

CII Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan plans to complete 100 such training programs in partnership with industry across the country during 2017-18, said the press release.

Hostels checked for food quality

Vadodara: After a long time, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) food safety officers conducted extensive checking of food item at hostels and canteens of the M S University (MSU) and other institutes.

Teams of VMC officials conducted checks at the science and arts faculty canteens of the MSU in the main campus as well as the messes Sardar Patel and Vikram Sarabhai halls of residence in the hostel campus. A team also checked the mess of the new boys' hostel of the Baroda Medical College in the Kothi area of the city.

Officials said that samples of flour, 'khichdi', sprouts, lentils and semolina or 'suji' were collected from the eateries. These will be tested at the public health laboratory of the VMC. If found substandard, action will be taken against those operating the facilities. The contractors of the eateries were asked to ensure that hygienic conditions are maintained and inferior quality material is not used for preparing food items.

Fruit that looks too good to be true is often bad news, say nutritionists

Picture-perfect produce may be a result of injections of synthetic dye, coatings of inedible wax. Super-sweet flavouring could be sugar water.

Careful consumers are now starting to look for uneven shapes and spots on their apples, as a positive sign that the fruit hasn’t been tampered with.

Do you remember watermelons being as sweet when you were a kid as they are today? Some vendors are injecting sugared water into the fruit to make it sweeter, and heavier.

“They’re also injecting red dyes to make the flesh look brighter,” says nutritionist Tripti Gupta. “These colours can be toxic and cause diseases.”

Watermelons are not the only fruit being tampered with.

Apples are also coated in wax — not always the edible kind — to make them look glossier.

The perfectly ripe mango that you bought the other day may have been ripened artificially, using chemicals rather than sunshine. Eating it may just be a health hazard.

Since fruits that are harvested ripe have a shorter shelf life, some farmers or suppliers are known to artificially ripen them to stay looking fresh longer.

The most commonly used chemical is calcium carbide, and an ethylene that artificially ripens fruits.

Artificial ripening is most prevalent during the beginning of a fruit season, when the demand is high, driving prices up. Given that the sector is unorganised, there are fewer food inspectors doing checks, so many harvests go unexamined.

Nutritionist Arati Shah says that calcium carbide is also used to artificially ripen bananas, papayas and sometimes apples. “This is the same chemical used in the manufacture of firecrackers,” she says. “It contains phosphorous, and releases acetylene gas, which hastens the ripening of fruits. It is also toxic.”

QUALITY CONTROL

HOW TO TELL

To test for artificial colours: Rub the surface of the fruit or vegetable with a cotton ball soaked in water or vegetable oil.

Or place a piece of the fruit or vegetable in a glass of water and let it stand for about 30 minutes.

To detect wax polish, scratch the surface of the fruit or vegetable with a blade.

So how do you pick safe fruit? The country’s top food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), has put together an online booklet called The Pink Book: Your Guide for Safe and Nutritious Food at Home’. It is aimed at Indian households and offers advice on buying, storing and preparing food. It also has details on how to determine if fruits, vegetables, grains, spices and condiments, milk and milk products are adulterated. The booklet is available for free download on the FSSAI site: foodsmart.fssai.gov.in/ PinkBook.pdf

“We have started many initiatives to ensure what people eat is safe. While we test edible items in our labs, there are certain ways with which a common person can figure out whether the food is adulterated or not. Our booklet will come in handy there,” says Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI.

Ritika Sammadar, regional head, dietetics, New Delhi’s Max Healthcare, says recommends picking seasonal, local fruits and vegetables as they are naturally fresh, nutritionally dense and cheap. “The problem with off season fruits and vegetables that are not locally available is that they are not fresh as they are kept in cold storage, could also be adulterated,” she says.

To remove surface chemicals at home, water and white vinegar is useful.

“Grapes can be soaked in salt water or vinegar solution and rinsed thoroughly to wash off chemicals. Apples can be soaked in hot water for a few minutes and wiped carefully to remove wax,” says Gupta.

Peeling fruit helps too. “Banana and papaya are the safest,” says Niti Desai, consultant nutritionist at Mumbai’s Cumballa Hill Hospital & Heart Institute.

MOUNTING SUSPICION

TO RID FRUITS AND VEGGIES OF CHEMICALS

Soak them in salt or white vinegar solution for a few minutes and wipe thoroughly.

Or scrub using baking soda and rinse with warm water.

Peeling fruits and vegetables is the best way to make them safe to eat.

Most consumers already sense that there’s something off about early-batch mangoes, and fruits that look photo-shoot ready. LocalCircles India, a citizen engagement platform, recently carried out an online poll to understand the extent of the problem. Of the 9,224 respondents who voted during first ten days of June, 32% said that they believed that mangoes they were eating were definitely artificially ripened. Half of them said these mangoes were most likely artificially ripened. Only 11% said they were confident that the mangoes had ripened naturally.

“Artificial ripening takes place most often during the beginning when the prices are high. These prices then ease out with the onset of monsoon as larger quantities hit the market,” says K. Yatish Rajawat, chief strategy officer, LocalCircles India.

So pick your fruit wisely at the store or market. If it looks too perfect, too uniform in shape, size and colour, it likely has been tampered with. This fruit will also be low on flavour, and often not be as sweet as it should be, since the artificial ripening means that flesh is not fully ripe inside.