Campbell Soup Co., in hot water over health claims in its soup advertisements, agreed yesterday to pay $315,000 to nine states to settle a dispute over the ads' content. The settlement with Campbell is the first in what is expected to be a series of actions by the states against other major food manufacturers that use health and nutrition claims in their advertising and labeling. Ads that link consumption of certain products to positive health benefits have become common -- and controversial -- in recent years. Medical, business and consumer groups are in dispute over how far an advertiser should go in ascribing health-promoting benefits to such products as oat cereal, reduced-calorie foods and nutritional supplements like vitamins. The informal multistate task force that pursued Campbell also has investigated advertising claims made by Procter & Gamble Co., Sara Lee Corp. and RJR Nabisco during the past year. Attorneys general in the nine states had charged Campbell with a wide range of false or misleading health claims in 23 radio, TV and print ads that ran with the slogan "Soup Is Good Food." The states took issue with Campbell's statements that some of its soups were high in fiber and calcium, low in fat and cholesterol, and could reduce the risk of heart disease and "some kinds of cancer." For instance, Campbell claimed in one of its ads that a serving of its tomato, cream of mushroom or cream of celery soups provides "10 percent of your daily requirement" of calcium, when the calcium actually comes mostly from the milk that the soups can be made with. Campbell stopped running the "Soup Is Good Food" campaign early last year, and went back to a 20-year-old campaign, "Campbell Soup is Mm! Mm! Good," which makes no direct health assertions. The settlement with the states doesn't affect a similar complaint made by the Federal Trade Commission against Campbell in January, which alleged that the heart-disease prevention claim in one of its "good food" ads was "false and misleading." The FTC pointed out that the ad did not mention that the soup is also high in sodium, which has been linked to high blood pressure. Campbell is fighting the charge, and the case is scheduled to go before an administrative law judge later this year. Under the settlement announced yesterday, Campbell will pay $35,000 to each of the states involved in the dispute -- California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri. It also agreed to provide certain details in ads about its soups' nutritional content whenever an ad makes a health-related claim. Because Campbell advertises nationally, the company said the settlement guidelines will be incorporated into all its future advertising. A spokesman for the Camden, N.J.-based company said Campbell stood by the ads and admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. He said it agreed to settle the issue to avoid an expensive court fight. Attorneys involved in challenging Campbell hailed the settlement as evidence of the states' growing power to police national advertising campaigns, a job usually reserved for the Federal Trade Commission. The task has been neglected, according to some state's attorneys, by the Reagan and Bush administrations. "If {the states} have to drag the FTC in kicking and screaming, we'll be glad to do it," said Hubert H. Humphrey III, Minnesota's attorney general, whose office initiated the state action against Campbell. The states, through the National Association of Attorneys General, have grown increasingly militant in their enforcement efforts since late 1987, when they adopted regulations concerning car-rental and airline fare advertising. In March, Suzuki of America paid $200,000 and agreed to change certain ads for its Suzuki Samurai vehicle to settle a complaint brought by seven states. These moves have been hotly criticized by the federal government and the advertising industry, which contend states should stick to their own regulatory spheres. "The states are dealing with problems that the FTC decided not to complain about," said Charles Mitchell, staff attorney at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington group that has challenged Campbell's ads before the FTC. "This reinforces our belief that the states continue to be the leading watchdog for consumers" in the food-advertising area.
