Many consumers nowadays avoid sugar when they can for health reasons. As a substitute, they often look for honey and products that use honey instead of sugar as a sweetener. This class action brings suit against Walmart’s Great Value Honey Mustard, claiming that it misleads consumers to think it is sweetened primarily with honey, when in actuality, the main sweetener appears to be sugar.
Two classes have been defined for this action:
- The Illinois Class is all persons in Illinois who bought the product during the applicable statutes of limitations.
- The Consumer Fraud Multi-State Class is all persons in North Dakota, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Nebraska, South Carolina, Kansas, and Wyoming who bought the product during the applicable statutes of limitations.
The first page of the complaint shows the product, along with a close-up of its label. The label shows the product name, Honey Mustard, along with the statement, “Made with Real Honey” and an image of a honey dipper resting in a pool of honey.
In recent years, consumers have come to believe that sugar is an unhealthy food ingredient. The complaint alleges, “Doctors and nutritionists agree that excess sugar intake leads to weight gain, Type 2 diabetes, dental caries, heart disease, cancer, and even dementia.” Many people now try to decrease the amount of sugar they consume.
As a result, in recent years, many people have been looking to honey as an alternative. The complaint alleges, “At least 50% of consumers are willing to pay more for foods primarily sweetened with honey.” They consider honey to be a healthier choice, the complaint claims, because is it natural rather than highly processed, has a lower glycemic index than sugar, and “has small but significant amounts of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes, phytonutrients and antioxidants.”
As to the Great Value product, the complaint alleges, because the product is described “as honey mustard that is ‘Made with Real Honey’ with pictures of a dripping honey dipper and mustard seeds, consumers will expect honey is its primary or at least a significant sweetening ingredient.”
But the complaint alleges that honey is not the main sweetener. Page 4 of the complaint reproduces the ingredient panel, which shows that “Sugar” comes before “Salt,” and only after that is “Honey” listed.
Looking at the Nutrition Panel and calculating the amount of sodium per serving in the product, the complaint alleges that “the amount of honey by weight is less than 64 mg” and that “[t]he amount of sugar can be estimated at almost 16 times more than the amount of honey.” It concludes, “Honey is not a significant sweetening ingredient in the Product based on these calculations.”
Thus, the complaint claims that the product is worth less than it is represented to be.
Article Type: LawsuitTopic: Consumer
Most Recent Case Event
Great Value “Honey Mustard” Contains More Sugar Than Honey Complaint
August 7, 2022
Many consumers nowadays avoid sugar when they can for health reasons. As a substitute, they often look for honey and products that use honey instead of sugar as a sweetener. This class action brings suit against Walmart’s Great Value Honey Mustard, claiming that it misleads consumers to think it is sweetened primarily with honey, when in actuality, the main sweetener appears to be sugar.
Great Value “Honey Mustard” Contains More Sugar Than Honey ComplaintCase Event History
Great Value “Honey Mustard” Contains More Sugar Than Honey Complaint
August 7, 2022
Many consumers nowadays avoid sugar when they can for health reasons. As a substitute, they often look for honey and products that use honey instead of sugar as a sweetener. This class action brings suit against Walmart’s Great Value Honey Mustard, claiming that it misleads consumers to think it is sweetened primarily with honey, when in actuality, the main sweetener appears to be sugar.
Great Value “Honey Mustard” Contains More Sugar Than Honey Complaint