This past week, the internet lit up over whether it was okay for President Biden and the First Lady to order the same dish at the Red Hen.  In this issue, we invite you to read the February highlights on clean labeling false advertising litigation, updates on green claims, thoughts on whether light beer should taste like beer, FDA’s plant-based milks draft guidance, and USDA’s enhanced authority on “organic” claims with the same level of fascination.  

“Clean at Sephora” Motion to Dismiss A Test for the Reasonable Consumer Standard

Clean claims on foods, supplements, OTC drugs and cosmetics have surged in popularity as have retailers’ efforts to curate product selections and ingredients to eliminate disfavored ingredients, such as synthetic dyes, preservatives, fragrances, parabens, phthalates, etc.  “Clean” is not defined in regulations, which means that each brand or retailer must explain to shoppers how it’s defined within that brand.  In fact, many popular lifestyle-related terms – vegetarian, vegan, keto, cruelty-free, etc. – also are not defined by regulation. 

To the delight of advertising lawyers and the chagrin of marketers, the answer to the question of how to deal with potentially vague terms is through clear and conspicuous disclosures.  It is just this scenario that is at issue in a pending false advertising lawsuit, Finster v. Sephora USA Inc.…

Continue Reading Food + Personal Care Product Litigation and Regulatory Highlights – February 2023

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