Class Action Lawsuit Targets Whole Foods Baked Goods

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Two California women filed a class action lawsuit against Whole Foods Market charging the supermarket chain with falsely advertising that some of its baked goods are “all natural” even though they allegedly contain some synthetic ingredients.

Plaintiffs Mary and Grace Garrison claim in the class action lawsuit that Whole Foods sells baked goods such as banana muffins, chocolate chip cookies and apple pie that contain ingredients such as sodium acid pyrophosphate, maltodextrin and other synthetic ingredients, allegedly enticing customers to pay a premium price by labeling the products “all natural.”

“Whole Foods knows reasonable consumers must and do rely on defendant to honestly report the nature of its products’ ingredients, insofar as consumers lack the ability to test or independently ascertain the accuracy of a food product’s label, especially at the point of sale,” the Whole Foods class action lawsuit states.

“Indeed, in this instance, defendant played on consumer ignorance to fraudulently generate substantial profits and engender unfair competition between itself and competitor companies that, unlike Whole Foods, behave responsibly and honestly toward their customers,” the two women added.

The Garrisons say they try to avoid foods that contain synthetic ingredients because of concerns that they have about the ingredients’ effect on their health, and are willing to pay more for foods that are “all natural.”

“For this reason, the representative plaintiffs are willing to and have paid a premium for foods that are ‘all natural’ and have refrained from buying their counterparts that were not ‘all natural,'” the Whole Foods class action lawsuit says.

Because of the “all natural” label, the Garrisons and other potential Class Members took the words on the label at face value and trusted that the words were truthful, they claim.

“[The Garrisons] not only purchased the products because the labels said they were ‘all natural,’ but they paid more money for the products than they would have had to pay for other similar products that were not ‘all natural’ (i.e. products that admittedly contained manmade, synthetic ingredients),” the Whole Foods all natural class action lawsuit states.

If they had known the Whole Foods products contained synthetic ingredients and were not “all natural,” the Garrisons claim, they would not have purchased them and would have opted for brands that used the words “all natural” truthfully.

The products at issue are Whole Foods’ banana bran mini muffins, blueberry mini muffins, coffee cake mini muffins, chocolate chip soft baked cookies, oatmeal raisin soft baked cookies, snicker-doodle soft baked cookies, gluten free apple pie, gluten free cheddar biscuits, gluten free cornbread, gluten free molasses ginger cookies, gluten free chocolate cupcakes and gluten free vanilla cupcakes.

The plaintiffs are represented by Matthew R. Bainer and Molly A. DeSario of Scott Cole & Associates APC.

The Whole Foods ‘All Natural’ Class Action Lawsuit is Mary Garrison, et al. v. Whole Foods Market Inc., Case No. 3:13-cv-05222 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On June 2, 2014, the judge refused a motion by Whole Foods to dismiss the class action lawsuit. The case continues.

UPDATE 2: On Mar. 10, 2016, Whole Foods Market asked a judge to dismiss an amended class action lawsuit that claims several baked good products labeled as “all natural” contain synthetic ingredients.

UPDATE 3: On Mar. 29, 2016, a federal judge ruled that some of the claims in the proposed class action lawsuit over “all natural” labeling would remain, but nixed claims regarding the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and breach of contract.

UPDATE 4: On June 7, 2016, Whole Foods agreed to settle two class action lawsuits alleging the high-end organic grocery chain falsely labeled certain baked good products as “all natural.”