Yoghurts are a tricky area for the EU. Yoghurts are thought to have many health benefits, but under EU laws, they are only allowed to market products using a few of them. For example, yoghurts are allowed to say they are good for your bones if they contain over a certain amount of calcium.
One of the big claims that yoghurts used to make was improved digestion. This was thought to be due to the presence of probiotics, 'good bacteria' that help the healthy functioning of the digestive system.
But the list of permitted claims released by the EU does not include probiotics. This is because the mechanism by which probiotics could improve digestion are not known.
The yoghurt industry has responded by conduction a series of meta-analyses – they have looked at all the scientific data on probiotics to try and show the positive effect. But currently, yoghurts are not permitted to make the claim that they improve digestive function in the EU.
Danone has got in trouble for this. The company continued to advertise its product Activia as being 'good for digestion' until 2010 in the EU, but had to change its marketing due to the claims not being permitted under the new EU rules.
Danone has also faced law suits in Canada and America for its misleading advertising of Activia. Both law suits have resulted in massive pay-outs to compensate customers for misleading them.
