Nutrone Baby Nutrition Component Importer, Claiming NIS 40 Million from Abbott and its Online Promotions Company • Claims: Activated Anti-us Accounts and Paid Mothers to Embrace a False Campaign

• Nutrilone. "Systematically discriminate"

Teva company, importer of nutritional food compounds for Nutrilon, filed a lawsuit in Tel Aviv District Court yesterday for NIS 40 million against Abbott, importer of infant food compounds Similac, and against Lake Leaders Tech Ltd. under the management of Efrat Sela Itamar, now known as De Leaders - A network marketing company. 

The lawsuit claims that Abbott is behind a covert social media defamation campaign aimed at hurting Nutrilone after significantly increasing its market share in Israel. It is also alleged that "Abbott acted in a wrong, lost and excluded method, in which fictitious mothers' profiles were used alongside paid responders on social networks, to denigrate the Nutrilon brand of nature and sow panic and apprehension among parents of infants while disseminating misleading information."

An undercover campaign

The false campaign, Israel Nature claims, has also found its way into prominent media reports in Israel and aims to influence illegal and unethical ways for the public to abandon the use of Nutrilon products in favor of Similac. In nature, it is alleged that this is a parental deception and a false alarm, in a market characterized by great sensitivity, among other things, due to the "remedy" tragedy.

In May 2019, Teva stated that Nutrilone, a manufacturer of Nutrilon, has launched a new plant in the Netherlands, one of the world's most advanced, for the manufacture of baby food compounds. In these publications, Teva also emphasized that the products themselves, the formulas and the production process did not change. The company reiterated that these are the only two changes to the product. 

However, according to the lawsuit, in September 2019, Teva awoke to the delusional reality of a Facebook storm taking place around Nutrilon, centering on false rumors spreading "like wildfire" as if the formula itself had been altered and as if the product was related to infant morbidity. 

Teva claims to have fallen victim to a covert network campaign run by Abbott, the Similac importer and Efrat Sela Itamar's "Leaders" influencer, which provides online monitoring and intervention services. The company says that after Teva contacted Facebook to check the authenticity of some "suspicious" accounts, Facebook confirmed the suspicions of nature and immediately removed some of the fictitious accounts that were then known.

Nature also claims that the fictitious profiles and sponsored accounts worked systematically, on Similac's mission, to discredit Nutrilon, among other things by dissolving concerns about the safety of Nutrilon's formula. 

The fictitious fleet of paid commenters achieved a great deal of influence in the Baby Nutrition discourse in all relevant forums and word-of-mouth recommendations from the parties on their behalf without any proper disclosure of the commercial behind them and also became a major influence tool in its strategy to use the Similac users Baby food substitutes) are competing and trying to stem the sharp decline Similac experienced in its product sales. 

Nature also says that in this market "if in doubt - there is no doubt" and it was enough to hear a rumor that it wanted widespread enough to send Nutrilon to a drop in sales and serious brand damage, as mentioned, for no real reason.

"Negative discourse"

Yossi Ofek, CEO of Teva Israel, told Israel Today that "since the beginning of September, the company has identified negative social discourses on significant and exceptional levels. These are dozens of fictitious accounts along with paid mothers. Nature has identified a repetition pattern based on similar messages copied by different profiles with the aim of echoing negative messages to Nutrilon. "

According to Stornecast, by August last year Nutrilon's market share was 21.6%. Metrana's market share was 47.9% and Similac's 21.6%. Our review shows that in January 2020, that is, after about six months, the brand's market share has gradually dropped to 17.1%.  

"The lawsuit is being learned"

Abbott said: "At Abbott, we are committed to communicating with us and responsible for our products. We have received the lawsuit and we are studying it." Itamar rock ashtray did not respond.