Ben & Jerry's defends dioxin complaint

[Joy Towles <hope@igc.org>]

Ben & Jerry's defends dioxin complaint



                                                           Updated 5:06
PM ET December 16, 1999

   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Popular ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's said
Thursday its dioxin-free packaging
   was an effort to improve the environment where the company could even
if the ice cream contained the
   controversial chemical.

   "There is no food group that is really safe from the harmful effects
of dioxin," Ben & Jerry's spokeswoman
   Chrystie Heimert told Reuters.

   A complaint lodged Thursday with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
charged Ben & Jerry's Homemade
   Holdings Inc. with misleading advertising for touting its
environmentally-friendly packaging without telling
   customers about dioxin in the ice cream itself.

   The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Citizens for the
Integrity of Science who filed the complaint
   believe the ice cream is perfectly safe but object to company
materials that include the statement: "the only
   safe level of dioxin exposure is no exposure at all."

   CEI general counsel Sam Kazman ate scoopfuls of Ben & Jerry's at a
press conference. "In our view, the
   dangers of dioxin have been greatly overstated and Ben & Jerry's
ECO-Pint ad campaign is yet another
   example of this," he wrote the FTC.

   Dioxin exposure has been associated in some studies with an increased
incidence of cancer but the actual
   danger and safe level of the chemical is hotly disputed.

   Produced as a by-product of industrial and chemical processes, such
as paper making, dioxin is found in
   foods with high fat content, such as dairy products, fish and meat.

   Last February, Ben & Jerry's began packaging its top-selling "World's
Best Vanilla" flavor in the new
   "ECO-Pint," containers made from unbleached, chlorine-free paper,
which is produced without creating
   dioxin and other organochlorine byproducts.

   The FTC complaint cited a laboratory test of "World's Best Vanilla,"
which found the ice cream contained
   0.70 parts per trillion of dioxin.

   But the South Burlington, Vermont-based company said the complaint
diverted attention from the real point.
   "We as a company feel we need to take an action in those areas we
can, and for Ben & Jerry's, that's in our
   packaging," Heimert said.

   "The good thing that comes out of this is that people are talking
about dioxin," Heimert said.

   Shares of Ben & Jerry's were down 5/8 to 25-5/8 at the close of
Nasdaq trading Thursday.