Judge says consumers can use their noodles when choosing pasta

St. Louis ? In this case of competition boiling over, a federal appeals court ruled Monday that a pasta company, despite a rival’s protests, can bill itself “America’s Favorite Pasta.”

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ sentiment: Consumers can use their noodle to decide if Kansas City-based American Italian Pasta Co. is making its case that it’s the choicest.

In upholding a lower court’s ruling, the 8th Circuit rejected bankrupt, Pennsylvania-based New World Pasta Co.’s claim that the questioned marketing amounts to false or misleading advertising under federal law.

The three-judge 8th Circuit panel sided with American, saying the phrase at issue is merely “puffery.”

New World — among the nation’s largest maker of dry pasta products, under such brands as Creamette, Prince, American Beauty, Ronzoni and San Giorgio — last month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in its home state of Pennsylvania.

American Italian makes pasta for ConAgra, Kraft and several supermarket house brands.

Messages left Monday with American Italian and New World were not returned.

Since buying the Mueller’s brand from Best Foods in 2000, American has placed the phrase “America’s Favorite Pasta” on Mueller’s packaging.

When New World demanded in writing that American stop calling Mueller’s “America’s Favorite Pasta,” American sought a ruling that its marketing wasn’t misleading. New World quickly countersued.

In siding with American Italian, Judge William Riley wrote for the court that puffery either may be harmless blustering or boasting “upon which no reasonable consumer would rely,” or “vague or highly subjective claims of product superiority.”

Riley concluded that the key term in “America’s Favorite Pasta” was “favorite,” defined here as “markedly popular especially over an extended period of time.” And in this context, Riley found, popular meant “well-liked or admired by a particular group or circle.”

“‘America’s Favorite Pasta’ is not a specific, measurable claim and cannot be reasonably interpreted as an objective fact,” Riley wrote.