Is Ragu fresh?

I came across a short article in the October 2008 issue of consumer reports that dealt with deceptive advertising of Ragu pasta sauce. Ragu has new pasta sauce in pouches for single servings. For advertising purposes, these pouches were labeled as “Fresh & Simple”. The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus concluded that “fresh” could not be used, because the product was in fact not fresh. Ragu claimed that fresh referred to the single-serving portion of the pouch and therefore, a fresh pouch must be used every time. Regardless of their argument, Ragu agreed that it would remove the “Fresh & Simple” wording from its packaging and advertising.

This example of advertising regulation is exactly what we talked about in class last week. How could a product be labeled as fresh when it comes from a pouch or a can. In this instance it was not truthful advertising or puffery, but merely misleading.

I could not post the article due to copyright.
For my Webster classmates:
If you would like to see the full article please log on to Webster’s library and search the title “Truth in advertising? Industry group rules on claims”.

You can view NAD’s decisions on other ads by visiting nadreview.org.