Dabur, Marico accuse each other of false claims about honey, approach advertising regulator ASCI

Two main homegrown rival FMCG manufacturers Dabur and Marico are in an open spat with each other over claims relating to their honey manufacturers and have taken the matter to advertising regulator ASCI.

Dabur on Sunday mentioned it’s submitting a criticism in opposition to rival Marico earlier than the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) for claiming its Saffola Honey pattern being handed via the NMR take a look at.

The Noida-based firm claimed Marico’s Saffola honey has failed the NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) take a look at and is deceptive the customers.

“Dabur is filing a complaint in ASCI against Marico as their Saffola Honey sample from the market has failed the NMR test. Test reports clearly indicate the presence of sugar syrup in Saffola honey. Their claim on NMR test is misleading the consumers,” Dabur claimed in a press release.

However, Dabur’s declare was refuted by Marico contending that “Saffola Honey is also compliant with each of the quality parameters mandated by FSSAI.”

Earlier, Marico had filed a criticism earlier than the ASCI on December 1, over Dabur’s claims of NMR of its honey and was upheld by the regulator.

Marico filed an intra-industry criticism earlier than ASCI, in opposition to ‘NMR TESTED PURE HONEY’ declare by Dabur for its product Dabur Honey. The declare ‘NMR tested’ was thought of false and deceptive by implication and omission and upheld below Chapter 1.4 of the ASCI Code, a Marico spokesperson said.

It has additionally filed one other criticism earlier than ASCI on December 3, 2020, whereby it challenged the declare made by Dabur its honey has handed the German NMR take a look at.

The criticism has been admitted by ASCI and brought on file for additional listening to, mentioned Marico.

Without naming the model, ASCI mentioned it has obtained 4 complaints in opposition to honey manufacturers over the previous few months.

Three of these complaints had been upheld as they contravened the ASCI code. The advertisers had been unable to offer satisfactory substantiation for the claims they had been making, and therefore these commercials had been thought of deceptive, mentioned Secretary-General Manisha Kapoor in an emailed reply to PTI.

As per the ASCI course of, the advertisers are required to switch their claims or withdraw the commercials.

While, Dabur in its assertion mentioned that the latest clarification by the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has clearly strengthened that their 22 obligatory assessments, together with particular take a look at like SMR, are essentially the most stringent assessments globally to detect all of the potential adulterants and sugar in honey.

“Dabur has cleared all the above FSSAI-mandated tests, including SMR, besides voluntarily conducting NMR test periodically to ensure that our consumers get 100% pure honey with no added sugar/syrups or any other adulterants,” it mentioned.

Last week, atmosphere watchdog CSE had issued a research report claiming main honey makers’ merchandise together with that of Dabur had been adulterated with sugar syrup.

“Honey samples from leading brands such as Dabur, Patanjali, Baidyanath, Zandu, Hitkari and Apis Himalaya, all failed the NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) test,” the research had mentioned.

Recently a number of new gamers have entered into the rising home honey market after pandemic as folks at the moment are specializing in wellness merchandise post-pandemic.

According to Expert Market Research, the India’s honey market reached a price of about ₹1,729 crore in 2019.

The market is additional anticipated to develop at a CAGR of about 10% between 2020 and 2025 to achieve a price of almost ₹30.6 billion by 2025, it mentioned.