• Wall Street Journal via Google, Monday, January 28, 2008 11:30 AM

Tyson Foods will overhaul ads for its antibiotic-free chicken products after competitors charged it with false and misleading marketing. The move comes even as the meat behemoth brushes off those allegations and says it had already changed the ads. "No advertisement containing the 'Raised Without Antibiotics' claim was approved to run after January 20, 2008," says Jenna Johnston, senior counsel for Tyson, in legal papers.

But some rivals say they have seen the ads since then. Tyson had been hawking its antibiotic-free chicken as part of a $70 million advertising campaign, but last month agreed to stop one version of its labels after the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded it had mistakenly awarded the company the right to use "antibiotic-free" because it was still using the stuff on its birds.

Four competitors, including Perdue and Sanderson Farms had accused Tyson of displaying misleading advertising claims in violation of federal and state law and sent a letter to Tyson asking the company to pull its ads. Tyson lawyers neither admitted nor deny those claims but say "making threats premised on baseless assertions only reinforces Tyson's view that it is your clients -- not Tyson -- who are engaging in unfair and anticompetitive conduct aimed at stifling, not promoting, competition."

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal via Google »