Taking On The Big Dog

Oct. 21, 2016

A tiny natural-pet-food maker is taking on some the biggest pet food manufacturers in the world.

A Michigan-based natural-pet-food company is tangled up in a legal dispute with some of the biggest names in dog chow.

Dr. Randy Wysong, a part-time Traverse City resident, has been trying to make healthier pet foods for 35 years by carefully studying which ingredients should be included and which should not. Now his company, the Midland-based Wysong Corporation, is taking on six companies that he contends use misleading packaging on dog and cat food. He’s filed federal lawsuits against each. It’s a battle he believes is central to the future of small specialtypet-food companies.

AN UNUSUAL COMPANY

The acrimony between Wysong Corporation and big pet food companies goes back years.

Wysong’s company, which employs around 30 people, is fairly unconventional for a consumer products manufacturer; it doesn’t have a sales force or a marketing department. Wysong said that’s because its focus is on the health of its “customers.”

“My interest is in trying to improve health, and I’m not just chasing markets or what is fashionable,” said Wysong.

Wysong’s interest in pet health is based in experience. He began his professional career as a veterinarian and saw pets’ food as an important tool to improve their health and stave off disease.

“We were basically the first company to change the emphasis in pet foods — in particular, from nutrient percentages to what the actual ingredients are and what the benefits are that they can impart,” he said.

In the past, he said, dog and cat food was sold without a list of ingredients, but rather, with a breakdown of the percentages of how much protein, fat, and carbohydrates the food contained.

Wysong believes the information was useless; under that metric, he said, a dinner of shoe leather and soap would look nutritious.

PROBIOTIC PIONEER

Careful study of ingredients led Wysong to probiotics, or the beneficial bacteria that’s present in foods like yogurt. He saw in probiotics a potential to improve the health of pets, so he developed a process to add it to pet food. The challenge: Bacteria gets killed in heat, and cooking is necessary to ensure pathogens are removed from pet food ingredients. Wysong developed a process to enrobe the food in probiotics after it’s cooked.

That was in the 1990s, and over the years, other pet food companies copied the process. Wysong never patented it. He said he didn’t mind being copied because it meant more nutritious pet food was getting to its pet consumers.

“I hate to take all the credit for something, but I would say that most of the natural so-tospeak ‘innovations’ that you see occurring in various products — we were there at the beginning of that,” Wysong said. “Companies have picked up on our various ideas because we’re not hiding our innovations under a rug.”

In 1999, however, Wysong said that Nestle Purina applied for and received a patent for the probiotic process his company had developed. Later, Nestle sued Wysong and demanded to be paid for a license for use of the process.

“When they sued us for an invention that we basically had 15 years before they had City of Petoskey Parks and Recreation. their patent, we went to the patent office to have their patent overturned, and the patent officer overturned their patent,” Wysong said.

Nestle responded with “a fleet of attorneys,” he said. Nestle got the patent partially reinstated, and the dispute carried on until Wysong realized he was up against an opponent with virtually unlimited resources. He said he had to settle.

“They can exhaust small companies that try to do battle with them,” he said. “We’re not even a drop in the bucket compared to somebody like that.”

WYSONG MOVES ON

Once the case settled, Wysong was able to go on using his probiotic process. Wysong Corporation moved on, but Wysong said that over the years, he became troubled by how some of the big pet food companies marketed their products. Not only is the packaging misleading, he believes, but it makes it harder for his company to compete on store shelves that contain so many choices.

“It’s got to be incredibly confusing for a consumer trying to determine what is good and bad,” Wysong said. “The companies making these pictorial representations on packages are trying to cut through the clutter and capture the consumers’ attention.”

Wysong, who’s written 13 books about pet health and nutrition, said his company emphasizes education because he believes if consumers were better informed, they would select healthier products for their pets.

“The differences are subtle and really kind of hard to discern for the public,” Wysong said.

As the years went by it became clear, however, that what he perceives as misleading marketing — selling bags of pet food with pictures of human food on them — made it impossible for a small company to compete against the large ones, he said.

A FLEET OF LAWSUITS

Wysong Corporation sued Nestle Purina Petcare Company and five other large pet food manufacturers in federal court earlier this year. The lawsuits aim to level the playing field by prohibiting the appearance of attractive yet misleading food on pet food containers.

Each lawsuit claims the following: “In short, the premium meats, fish and vegetables portrayed on [the companies’] pet foods do not fairly represent the actual ingredients of the packages. The portrayals are literally false and thus by their very nature have the capacity to deceive consumers.”

Rather than the premium cuts pictured, what’s contained in the pet food are far cheaper animal products such as viscera, bones, feet and heads, according to the suit.

The lawsuits cite examples like these: “Chicken breasts like those pictured have a wholesale cost in the range of $1.50 per pound, but the lower grade chicken Nestle Purina actually puts in the packages costs approximately $.12 per pound,” and “Cuts of beef like those pictured have a wholesale cost in the range of $4.00 per pound, but the lower grade beef placed in the packages costs in the range of $.14 per pound.”

The lawsuits argue that, for a small company like Wysong’s to compete against this kind of marketing, plus food that contains “low-cost ingredients,” it would either have to engage in the same tactics itself or file lawsuits to force the companies to change their ways.

PURINA DENIES DECEPTION

The companies facing lawsuits contest the allegations. Purina, for example, denies its packaging is misleading.

“We have a long history of transparency and accuracy in advertising, marketing and packaging our pet foods, and deny Wysong’s allegations,” said Wendy Vlieks, director of corporate public relations for Purina. “Nestle Purina believes that honesty is the most important ‘ingredient’ in the relationship between pet owners and pet food manufacturers.”

Vlieks said Purina pet food is labeled in compliance with federal requirements and that the advertising accurately reflects the ingredients contained in the food.

“Purina’s practice is consistent with the industry practice, as seen by the fact that most of the industry leaders have also been sued by Wysong in copy-cat litigation,” she said.

Vlieks said she believes Wysong has mischaracterized the patent dispute between the two companies. She said it was not a large company bullying a small one, but rather, a case of Purina defending its intellectual property.

“As all companies do, we have a right and an obligation to protect our intellectual property,” she said. She said that dispute was settled with a confidential agreement.

The lawsuits are pending in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.