There is a legal dispute in the Netherlands between Lotus Bakeries e Holie'sHolie's, a young Dutch breakfast cereal brand, has been accused by the food giant of spreading misleading information about the sugar content of its products. At the heart of the dispute is Holie's launch of Sugar Score, an online tool that classifies breakfast and snack products based on the amount of sugar per 100 grams.
The platform assigns a rating from A to C: A for products with less than 5% sugar, B for those between 5% and 10%, and C for those exceeding 10%. Among the latter are bars. Nākd e Trek produced by Lotus Bakeries, which did not appreciate the judgment and decided to take legal action.
“Holie's invented its own 'Sugar-Score' and promoted it through its website and marketing campaign,” a Lotus spokesperson told the newspaper. Het Parool“Without any solid scientific basis, they promote their products as healthy and spread false and misleading information about competitors, in violation of the law.” The company also emphasizes that no sugar is added to Nākd bars.
Holie's response was swift. Co-founder Valentijn van Santvoort denied the accusations, clarifying that the information used comes directly from the products' nutritional labels. "We simply removed the marketing noise and compared the actual data," he explained. The case sparked a heated debate between food transparency and the protection of commercial reputation.
