Vermont Law Firms Sue Log Cabin, Birds Eye Over "Fraudulent" All-Natural Labels

[cali]

Is Log Cabin All Natural Syrup really “all natural” if it contains synthetic ingredients? What about Birds Eye “all natural” frozen vegetables, believed to contain genetically engineered ingredients not listed on the package?

Not according to two Vermont consumer advocacy groups, which charge that these and other “all natural” claims are “deceptive and misleading” to consumers. Both groups are suing the manufacturer to stop it from making those “fraudulent” claims — or else to remove those products from Vermont store shelves.

On Tuesday, Law for Food, a Stowe-based law firm that represents small-scale farmers and food producers, and the Vermont Community Law Center, a new Burlington-based public-interest law firm, filed a class-action lawsuit in Chittenden Superior Court. Their target: New Jersey-based Pinnacle Foods Group, owner of the Log Cabin and Birds Eye brands. The suit alleges that Pinnacle’s “all natural” claims “violate the letter and the spirit” of Vermont’s consumer-protection law.

“One of the things that the Vermont Consumer Protection Act does is prohibit misrepresentations that would be deceptive to the reasonable consumer,” explains Kenneth Miller, an attorney with Law for Food. “Using ‘all natural’ the way they’re using it and placing it next to something that is all natural — like Vermont maple syrup — is clearly trying to deceive the consumer.” Log Cabin comes in a tan plastic jug that closely resembles the containers commonly used by Vermont maple-syrup makers.

The lawsuit charges that Log Cabin syrup cannot legitimately be called “all natural” because it includes ingredients such as xanthan gum, which is made in a laboratory and the U.S. Department of Agriculture lists as “synthetic.” Likewise, the suit alleges that Birds Eye frozen corn contains genetically engineered corn, which “is not natural by definition.” The lawsuit quotes from the official website of Monsanto — a leading producer of GE seed corn — which defines genetic engineering as organisms that have had their “genetic makeup altered to exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs” (emphasis added).
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http://www.7dvt.com/2012vermont-law-firms-sue-log-cabin-birds-eye-over-fraudulent-all-natural-labels

[Marrah_G]

1. I love love love Vt

[Ezlivin]

2. Go Vermont!

I hate misleading labeling.

I'm learning to ignore claims made on the front label and simply reading the content label. Unfortunately these bastards are lying even there.

[antigone382]

3. I don't know how Log Cabin syrup sells at all in Vermont...

I realize that maple syrup is pretty expensive, even in Vermont, but in the heartland of the real thing, how could you possibly stand the cheap imitation? I don't think I know any Vermonters that would touch fake syrup with a ten-foot pole.

[knitter4democracy]

5. Darn straight. I only ever buy the real thing.

I have a store that sells it with the label of the farm it came from so I can check if I have to.

As for veggies, I get local, do up my own from my own garden or local farms, or get organic.

[elleng]

4. Glad they're doing this.

Saw the plastic jug, immitating the real stuff, yesterday, and of course had to read the small print to learn that its NOT the real, all natural stuff.

[firehorse]

6. Another thing to love about Vermont

[jeff47]

7. Just wanna point out something about corn

Corn is not natural. Corn was created by ancient selective breeding practices over millennia, before Europeans arrived in the Americas.

Corn can not survive without human intervention - Those big cobs mean all the seeds would fall right below the parent plant, in one big lump. All those new seeds would fail to grow well, because the competition for water and nutrients would be fierce. There is no animal which could spread the seeds. The critters to which we feed corn digest the seeds, killing the new plants. Animals that would not destroy the seeds don't eat anything like corn in the wild.

Without humans, corn dies out in a few years.