Morningstar Farms “Veggie” Products Mostly Grains and Oil Class Action

Morningstar Farms, a brand of the Kellogg Sales Company, makes products that are labeled as being “veggie” products, including Veggie Burgers, Veggie Dogs, Veggie Chik’n, Veggie Meal Starters, Veggitizers, and Veggie Breakfast. The complaint for this class action alleges this “veggie” representation is misleading, because, it says, “the predominant non-water ingredient in all of the Veggie Products is not vegetables—or even vegetable-based—but instead, grain or oil.”

The class for this action is all persons who, at any time between September 17, 2017 and the time the class is notified in this case, bought any of the Veggie products in California, for personal or household use and not for resale. Pages 2 and 3 of the complaint list numerous products in the above Veggie lines that are at issue in this case.

Consumers these days are opting to buy less meat or fewer meat products. To take advantage of this desire, food manufacturers have come out with a variety of products that substitute other ingredients, such as beans, tofu, grains, and vegetables.

The makers of these meat-alternative foods typically announce the primary ingredient to help consumers decide among various options. The complaint claims, “Consumers understand ingredient call-outs in product names for meat-alternatives to comprise the product’s primary ingredient; for example, consumers understand a product marketed as a ‘bean-burger’ to be made primarily from beans, and a ‘tofurkey’ dog to be made primarily from tofu.”

It alleges that consumers expect that products marketed as “veggie” expect that the primary ingredients are vegetables, and not legumes, grains, tofu, oil, or other substances.

The complaint shows images of some of the products, claiming, “The packaging of each of the Veggie Products prominently claims the product is ‘Veggie,’ in a colorful banner across the front of the package…” However, the complaint alleges, excluding water, these “veggie” products contain, predominantly, grains or oils.

For example, the first three ingredients on the ingredient panel of the Veggie Dogs are water, wheat gluten, [and] corn syrup solids[.]” Vegetables seem to enter it only in the “Contains 2% or less of” section, with “hydrolyzed vegetable protein.”

The complaint states, “Because the predominant ingredient in each of the Veggie Products is grain or oil, Kellogg’s representation that the Veggie Products are ‘Veggie’ is false or at least highly misleading to the reasonable consumer.”

According to the complaint, this violates both federal and California food labeling law, which consider a food misbranded if its “label is false or misleading in any particular.” It also suggests that, under a different part of the labeling law, the food name should include not just “Veggie” but the words “Grain” and/or “Oil.” Finally, the complaint alleges that the products should indicate the percentage of the ingredients that is made up of vegetables.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Contains Too Little of Featured Ingredients, Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels