New Avalon Ad Campaign Hoodwinks Consumers about Organic Content; '70 Percent Organic' Claim Counts Added Water from Steam

11/15/2004

Contact: Craig Minowa, 877-264-4440 or Craig@OrganicConsumers.org; or Adam Eidinger 202-744-2671 or Adam@Mintwood.com; Web site: http://www.organicconsumers.org

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- On October 19 the Organic Consumers Association's Coming Clean Campaign issued a press release praising Avalon Natural Products for dropping a "70 percent Organic" claim from labels on their shampoo and other products. However, despite promising to phase out their product line with the old label over the next few months, Avalon continues to purchase full page ads in leading natural publications such as Vegetarian Times, Natural Foods Merchandiser and Lotus Light that make misleading "70 percent organic" claims. Avalon had been labeling their products as 70 percent organic by counting non-plant water from the steaming of botanical ingredients (called hydrosols) in their organic claim. Earlier in 2004, the Rutgers Institute released a study of hydrosol water extracts that found that 70 percent or more of the content is ordinary water, which makes up the vast majority of the supposed "organic" content of Avalon's current product line. In a positive response to a nationwide consumer backlash generated by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), an internal Avalon review found that former Avalon management and the supplier of the water extracts in question had been making misleading claims about the organic nature of the regular tap water in their hydrosol water extracts. In a letter sent today to Avalon, OCA said (excerpted from the full letter posted at http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare):

OCA desires to reinforce with public pronouncements incremental improvement of labeling integrity, such as what OCA thought was Avalon's commitment to no longer mislead the marketplace and consumers about the hydrosol water extract scheme. OCA phoned Avalon on November 11 to ask why has Avalon informed the OCA of the discontinuation of these misleading labeling practices, and yet Avalon's marketing clearly suggests otherwise? In answer, Avalon asserted that they are hoping to flush out all old products from the inventory pipeline with the current marketing push by the end of the year. In OCA's view, this is a weak answer given Avalon's recognition that the hydrosol water extract scheme misleads the marketplace.

"Avalon's new labels claim 'Consciousness in Cosmetics(tm)' but their recent ad campaign is deceiving the general public into thinking their products are still '70 percent organic' even though they admitted they are not," says Craig Minowa, an environmental scientist with the Organic Consumers Association. "Additionally, the 'Avalon Organics' brand name these products are sold under misrepresents the brand and products as organic when they clearly are not, which hardly constitutes 'Conciousness in Cosmetics'"

Avalon's new labels continue to represent the brand as "Avalon Organics(r)" on the front panel. The practice of "Company Name Organics" is widespread in the natural products industry despite the fact most such companies' products are not organic and are based on synthetic conventional detergents. Many of these companies also represent 70 percent or more of the content of their products is "organic" by counting ordinary water in water extracts as "organic." OCA will campaign aggressively in the coming year to stop both practices which are corroding the integrity of the organic program in the marketplace.

The OCA is a grassroots nonprofit organization concerned with food safety, organic farming, sustainable agriculture, fair trade and genetic engineering.