No Cinnamon in Catalina Crunch Cinnamon Toast Cereal California Class Action

Catalina Snacks, Inc. makes snack food, but it also offers a line of keto-friendly cereal products. At issue in this class action is its Catalina Crunch Cinnamon Toast Cereal. The complaint alleges that it does not contain its characterizing ingredient—cinnamon.

The class for this action is all California citizens who bought the product within the applicable statute of limitations. A Consumer Subclass has also been proposed for all members of the class who bought the product for personal, family, or household purposes.

Page 4 of the complaint displays a photo of the front label of the product, showing has a number of representations that lead consumers to believe that it contains cinnamon. The name or variety of the product is “Cinnamon Toast,” and the front of the package shows cinnamon sticks and a substantial amount of cinnamon powder.

Page 5 shows the back of the product package, and an image of the ingredient panel. This does not list cinnamon but only “Natural Flavors.”

The complaint alleges, “Despite being labeled and characterized as a cereal that contains cinnamon, the Product lacks this important ingredient. Instead, it is flavored by an ingredient described as ‘Natural Flavors,’ which are lab synthesized ingredients.”

According to the complaint, consumers these days are health conscious and are looking for products with something it calls “functional flavors,” like cinnamon. The “functional” description means that, in addition to flavoring a product, they also have health benefits.

The complaint quotes a Global Market Study on Cinnamon as saying, “Spices play a vital role in developing the taste and flavor in food products, and also contain numerous health beneficial properties. Due to this, the demand for healthy and flavorful spices such as cinnamon is growing.”

And “Natural Flavors” are often not natural. The complaint quotes an article as saying that “they can contain both artificial and synthetic chemicals (often used as processing aids).” The complaint contends that “there can be as many as 100 chemicals in a single natural flavor, such as solvents, emulsifiers, flavor modifiers and preservatives, which often make up to 80 to 90 percent of the mixture in a natural flavor.” These, the complaint alleges, are cheaper to use than real cinnamon.

The complaint alleges that the Cinnamon Toast product at issue is not labeled according to federal labeling regulations.

The complaint quotes a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) publication as saying, “The difference between a product that contains a characterizing food ingredient and a product that contains no such ingredient [] is not at all subtle, and is very important to the value of the product and thus to the consuming public.”

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