Hunton Retail Law Resource

Responding to a challenge brought by HelloFresh (Grocery Delivery E-Services, USA), the National Advertising Division (NAD) affirmed that Home Chef (Relish Labs, LLC) offered reasonable grounds on which to base its claims that its meal kit delivery service offers consumers more flexibility than HelloFresh’s similar service. In particular, NAD noted that Home Chef’s “Customize It” feature provides ample variety, permitting consumers to upgrade or increase the amount of protein in their weekly meal selections, or even change recipes entirely by switching out the protein. Still, the NAD took issue with various other iterations of Home Chef’s “more choices” claims, finding that certain of those claims exaggerated the amount of customization offered. For example, while NAD concluded that a reasonable consumer would interpret Home Chef’s numeric comparison of “choices” offered relative to HelloFresh to be a meals-to-meals or recipe-to-recipe comparison, Home Chef counted the customization options of “doubling” or “upgrading” of the protein as wholly different choices. NAD suggested narrowing such comparative numbers of choices to the competitors’ “base” meals or recipes, including those Customize It options where customers can switch out the protein. Home Chef has agreed to comply with NAD’s recommendations.