American brand Sunny Isle relabels castor oil after FTC intervention

JBC Distributors Inc, an American company that utilises brand Jamaica to promote its Sunny Isle castor oil product, has adjusted the labelling following the intervention of the Fair Trading Commission.

It’s the latest win for local authorities trying to police the use of Jamaica’s name in products that trade globally.

The FTC’s investigation didn’t question the authenticity of the product as originating from Jamaica. Rather it requested that Sunny Isle remove misleading information regarding Government endorsement of its product.

“We are satisfied that they have changed the labelling,” said FTC Executive Director David Miller in an interview with the Financial Gleaner. “We have done our part in regard to the misleading labelling,” he said.

The investigation, which was treated as a case of misleading advertising, was concluded “before summer” but the findings were just released through the competition watchdog’s quarterly publication titled FTCNewsline.

JBC Distributors did not respond to requests for comment.

Sunny Isle eliminated the tagline of being “The Only Jamaican Black Castor Oil Approved for Export by the Jamaican Government”. The FTC concluded that the statement was false as the Sunny Isle brand of black castor oil is not the only Jamaican black castor oil that is approved for export.

The investigation was conducted at the request of Bureau of Standards Jamaica. During its probe FTC determined through Jampro that Sunny Isle does export locally produced castor oil to the United States for manufacture.

The American company is one of the largest Jamaica black castor oil producers. Its Sunny Isle products are sold in major metropoles and through online platforms, and its influence extends to social pages with over 165,000 followers on Instagram. That’s three to four times as many as its popular peer, Tropic Isle, which has 49,000 followers.

During its probe, FTC determined that it did not have jurisdiction over JBC Distributors Inc, which is neither registered nor resident in Jamaica.

“The factory and the company is Florida-based,” said Miller.

Notwithstanding, the competition watchdog made several requests to JBC Distributors to amend the labelling, and the company complied. It removed the misleading statement from both its labels and website, FTC said, while announcing that it had closed the investigation.

However, the FTC has also requested of the National Compliance and Regulatory Authority, which is the regulatory arm of the Bureau of Standards, that it look into whether Sunny Isle was compliant with its use of Jamaican black castor oil in the product line.

“We asked that they use their powers to ensure compliance,” said Miller.

The market potential for Jamaica’s black castor oil in the United States alone was estimated at US$28 million, according to a 2019 study commissioned by Compete Caribbean, a project backed by the Inter-American Development Bank, the UK Department for International Development, the Caribbean Development Bank and the Government of Canada.

The study also found that while the name of ‘Jamaica’ was associated with US$4.8 million of the export value, most of the products utilising the ‘Jamaican black castor oil’ label were actually supplied out of India and China.

steven.jackson@gleanerjm.com