Welcome to the 2023 inaugural issue of our newsletter, where we explore litigation and regulatory trends and developments from around the food, dietary supplement, and personal care industries. Like most everybody else, we’ve given up on our new year’s resolutions, so let’s go to the food court.
The Food Court – Vanilla Cases Melt Away But Other Ingredient Theories Rise
With courts expressing continued skepticism about vanilla bean false advertising theories, plaintiffs are targeting a slew of other ingredient-based false advertising angles. For example, in Patoni et al. v. Spindrift Beverage Co., the plaintiff claims that Spindrift’s “clean” branding and messaging trumpeting that the drinks contain only water and fruit are false and misleading because the products also contain citric acid, which is plainly disclosed on the ingredient declaration. Because many courts do not expect consumers to look beyond a product’s front panel to read ingredient declarations, those three words – yup, that’s it – which are pervasive in Spindrift’s branding, are likely to be highly significant because they expressly tell the consumer that there is nothing else in the products.
Where consumers are basing their lawsuits on assumptions rather than express claims, courts are more likely to view them as… half-baked. An Illinois court dismissed a claim that Bimbo Bakery’s brown bread was falsely advertised because the bread’s dark color, visible flecks of grain and “brown bread” name caused consumers to believe it has a higher grain content, when it is actually made with enriched flour and has only 4% of the daily fiber value. The court found that the plaintiff’s assumptions about the bread content were unreasonable. Even if the bread’s color and obvious presence of grain suggested that the product had whole grains, it was no guarantee of the product’s precise grain content. The court stated: No reasonable consumer could conclude what percentage of whole wheat the bread contains merely by these toppings.
Continue Reading Food + Personal Care Industry Insights – January 2023
The dietary supplement and personal care product space continued to see enforcement on false CBD, COVID, and fertility claims as well as related litigation involving “germ-killing” claims on hand sanitizers and wipes. Messy stuff…Let’s take a look…
The year ended with a flurry of activity related to the FTC’s ability to obtain permanent injunctions and restitution under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act. As we head into 2020, a level-set is in order.