Kellogg’s Kashi Brand to Pay $4 Million over “All Natural” False Advertising Lawsuit
Selling 'all natural' products that contained GMOs
Kashi will pay $4 million in a false advertising lawsuit
put forth in Florida. The lawsuit claimed that Kellogg’s, the parent
company for Kashi, advertised an “all natural” (GM-free) product that
was, in reality, full of genetically modified ingredients.
The settlement resolves a class action lawsuit against the company
alleging that its products were falsely labeled as being “all natural”
and containing “nothing artificial,” suggesting that they were free of
genetically modified organisms.
Multiple Kashi products contain GM soy and GM corn, and a district judge argued that this “sufficiently alleges that a reasonable consumer would expect a product labeled ‘all natural’ to be free of GMOs.”
Kashi is also paying for a similar settlement in California:
“In a settlement filed in the southern district of
California on May 2, Kashi said it would pay $5m to resolve a class
action lawsuit accusing it of falsely advertising scores of products
from GoLean bars to Kashi Pita Crisps as ‘all natural’ or with ‘nothing
artificial’ when they in fact contained one or more of ‘an array of
chemicals’ which the plaintiffs argued a reasonable consumer would
consider unnatural”
This is an enormous win considering that the DARK act, which would prohibit states from instituting GM bans or GM labeling, has almost become law.
It also is a testament to the changing tide in consumer’s attitude
toward Big Food. Not only are citizens saying they want their food
labeled, but they will no longer sit idly by while companies like
Kellogg’s (or Pepsi, General Mills, etc.) lie about what is in
food products.
