A recent Decision from the National Advertising Division offers important insight into its evaluation of claims related to certification, animal welfare, environmental benefits and more.  Certain claims made by One Health Certification Foundation (OHC), an Iowa non-profit responsible for the One Health Certified standard, were challenged by The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center.

According to OHC, “One Health Certified is a systems-based, industry-developed animal care program that is verified by the USDA and enables farmers and producers to prioritize animal health and welfare while working toward safe, responsible, and transparent animal care.”

First, despite the challengers’ assertion that OHC falsely holds itself out as an impartial third-party certification entity when it in fact has deep ties to the meat industry, NAD determined that the OHC certification was appropriately independent, since there was no evidence that the standards creation process was dominated or controlled by industry stakeholders.  Further, given the lack of evidence of consumer confusion between the advertiser’s One Health Certified name and the One Health Initiative—a collaborative approach adopted by entities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization—as well as NAD’s determination that “One Health” was not an expressly false claim, NAD concluded that the name One Health did not require modification.

However, NAD recommended that OHC discontinue certain animal welfare claims, including:

• General animal welfare claims such as “Responsible Animal Care” and that OHC “enables farmers and producers to prioritize animal health and welfare while working toward safe, responsible, and transparent animal care.”  NAD found that these claims, in the context of a certification program, conveyed an unsupported message that certified products have met higher animal welfare standards than the rest of the industry.
• Superlative claims asserting that OHC is the best with respect to animal welfare.  According to NAD, “[w]hen made in connection with an animal welfare certification, many consumers may understand ‘best’ to mean the most rigorous humane treatment standards for animals in the industry.”  Without evidence that OHC’s animal welfare standards meet or exceed the highest industry standards, such claims were determined to be inappropriate.
• Claims promoting OHC’s holistic approach to certification, such as “Producers are committed to the betterment of human, animal, and environmental health” and “The health of humans, animals & the environment are inseparable.”  NAD found that, viewed in context, such claims conveyed an objective—and unsupported—message that OHC’s certification program has high standards in each of these three areas (human, animal and environmental health).
• The claim that “prompt treatment of sick animals is required.”  Because OHC’s standards do not actually require the prompt treatment of sick animals, but rather, define mortality thresholds at which treatment is required, NAD determined that this claim was not supported.

Next, NAD determined that OHC provided a reasonable basis to support certain antibiotic use claims, including that OHC-certified producers attempt to minimize the number of animals treated with antibiotics.  However, according to NAD, one message reasonably conveyed by claims of “antibiotic restrictions” is that OHC-certified poultry have met a higher standard than the prevailing industry practice.  Because this message was not supported, NAD recommended that such claims be discontinued as well as implied claims that OHC-certified producers use antibiotics more judiciously than the industry standard.

Finally, OHC claimed that it “supports environmental stewardship classes in order to minimize the impact of animal production on the environment,” and one of the five core principles on the advertiser’s website and certification label relates to the “environmental impact” of its program.  NAD referred to the FTC’s Green Guides, which discourage the use of general environmental claims because such claims can convey many different messages to consumers, and found that OHC’s mere collection of environmental impact data without setting standards did not support a general “environmental stewardship” claim.  “An aspiration to set meaningful carbon footprint thresholds sometime in the future does not support the message reasonably conveyed by a certification placed on a package of chicken that consumers purchase today,” NAD explained.

OHC indicated that it will appeal NAD’s decisions regarding its antibiotic, animal welfare and environmental claims.