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...
The Southeast National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Barr. Ray Nnaji said that widespread claims of a leadership crisis in the party stem from misinterpreting recent court r...