WASHINGTON (AP) —
Orange juice maker Tropicana markets its brand as fresh from the grove,
but a series of lawsuits nationwide claim the company's juice is so
heavily processed it shouldn't be called "natural."
In
approximately 20 lawsuits, the first one filed in New Jersey, lawyers
claim the company adds chemically engineered "flavor packs" to its
juice, making it taste the same year-round. On Thursday, lawyers came
together in Washington to argue before a panel of judges about where the
lawsuits should be heard as a group.
Tropicana declined to
comment but said in a statement that it is committed to full compliance
with labeling laws and to producing "great-tasting 100 percent orange
juice."
The orange juice lawsuits are just the latest disputes
over "all natural" claims. Over the past several years, a number of
major national brands have been attacked for what consumers have called
deceptive labeling. Tostitos, SunChips, Snapple and Ben & Jerry's
ice cream have all faced similar attacks.
The lawsuits have become
common enough that the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which
represents more than 300 food and beverage makers, had a panel that
discussed the topic as part of a conference in February. Lawyers
representing food and beverage companies have told their clients to be
wary. Part of the problem, lawyers agree, is that consumers are looking
for healthier products, and companies have responded by creating and
branding their products as "all natural."
The Food and Drug
Administration, the agency that oversees packaged food labeling in the
United States, has no definition of what counts as "natural." As long as
a food labeled "natural" doesn't contain added color, artificial flavor
or synthetic substances, the agency doesn't object.
That's not enough guidance, some lawyers said.
"The
whole natural issue is a mess," said Michael Jacobson, the executive
director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a
Washington-based food safety and advocacy group that helped get the
makers of 7UP and Capri Sun to stop making natural claims about their
products.
Jacobson and others say the FDA's lack of guidance has left lingering questions.
One
question has been whether a product with high fructose corn syrup,
which is made by processing corn but does not occur naturally, can be
labeled natural. That was the issue in a 2007 lawsuit over Snapple
drinks. Snapple has said it no longer uses high fructose corn syrup in
products marked "all natural," and a New York judge ultimately ruled in
Snapple's favor and closed the case last year, but other lawsuits are
still questioning the use of the term.
Many "all natural" lawsuits
are still in their infancy, said Kellie Lerner a lawyer who is involved
in the orange juice litigation and closely following "all natural"
cases. Lerner said like the orange juice lawsuit, other similar lawsuits
have sought class action status, where one or more consumers sue on
behalf of all people who bought the product.
The lawsuits could
get dismissed or go to trial, but companies could agree to settle with
consumers and offer product vouchers or rebates. The company that owns
Ben & Jerry's and Breyers ice cream, for example, settled "all
natural" lawsuits for $7.5 million earlier this year, providing
customers who bought flavors like "Chubby Hubby" and "Chunky Monkey"
cash rebates of up to $20. The ice cream company also agreed to change
its packaging, and that's something lawyers involved in the orange juice
lawsuit want too.
"I'd like them to modify their marketing so
that consumers can make an informed judgment on their purchases," said
Stephen A. Weiss, a lawyer involved in one of the lawsuits against
Tropicana.
The Tropicana lawsuits are partly the result of a 2009
book about the orange juice industry, Alissa Hamilton's "Squeezed: What
You Don't Know About Orange Juice." Hamilton, a doctoral student at Yale
when she started researching orange juice, spent five years learning
about the industry, interviewing Tropicana employees, growers, farmers,
and others. Hamilton, who has consulted with one of the firms involved
in a Tropicana lawsuit, said she would like to see Tropicana be clearer
in its labeling and stop using words such as "fresh," ''natural" and
"pure."
"It's not simply orange, it's complicated orange," she
said. "I'm just trying to advocate for more honesty and more
transparency."
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Follow Jessica Gresko on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.