Fanta Berry “100% Natural Flavors” Misleading Claim California Class Action

Consumers nowadays increasingly prefer natural to artificial flavors. This class action concerns a product from the Coca-Cola Company, a blue-colored, berry-flavored drink under the Fanta brand that claims on its front to contain “100% Natural Flavors.” The complaint for this class action claims, however, that the drink contains an artificial flavor, malic acid.

The class for this action is all citizens of California who bought the Fanta product, for personal or household consumption or use, within the statutory period.

Consumers prefer natural flavors for a number of reasons, the complaint alleges—for example, because they feel that natural foods are healthier, or provide better nutrition.

Page 4 of the complaint shows an image of the product bottle beside an image of the front label. The product is identified as “Fanta Berry,” and the front label bears the words “100% Natural Flavors” and an image of blueberries and a raspberry, along with two red drops that presumably come from the raspberry.

The complaint alleges, “By identifying the Product as having ‘100% Natural Flavors,’ with pictures of blueberries and a raspberry, consumers expect only natural flavors, because that is what the label says.”

But page 5 of the complaint contains an image of the ingredient panel for the drink. While this does list “Natural Flavors,” it also lists “Malic Acid.”

According to the complaint, the sweetness of fruits is determined by the ratio of their content of sugars, such as glucose and fructose, to their content of acids, such as citric and malic acid. The complaint alleges, “Sweetness and tartness are important contributors to the states and flavor perception of blueberries and raspberries.”

The complaint asserts, “The most important organic acid in blueberries is malic acid, which is estimated to contribute to one-third of the total acid concentration.” It also claims, “In raspberries, the relative amount of malic acid compared to citric acid is less, but malic acid is significant in providing the ‘tart’ raspberry taste.”

Malic acid, the complaint claims, has “two isomers, or different arrangements of atoms in the molecule, L-malic acid, and D-malic acid.” L-malic acid may appear naturally, in fruits. D-malic acid does not occur naturally.

The complaint alleges, “D-Malic Acid is most commonly found as a Racemic Mixture of the D isomer and L isomer, DL-Malic Acid, which is commercially made from petroleum products.”

According to the complaint, the company “had the option to add naturally extracted L-Malic Acid, naturally manufactured acid such as Citric Acid, or natural blueberry or raspberry flavor to the Product, but intentionally used artificial DL-Malic Acid because it was likely cheaper or more accurately resembled natural flavors than Citric Acid or other acids.”

However, the complaint claims that laboratory tests show that the kind of malic acid contained in the Fanta drink is the artificial DL-malic acid rather than the natural L-malic acid.” Therefore, the complaint alleges that the “100% Natural Flavors” claim is false and misleading.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: All Natural, Contains synthetic ingredients, Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels