Fed-up consumers are going after food companies for misleading claims
npr.org
npr.org
Claiming your filling is 100% tuna or that your drink is made with aged vanilla, when both are completely untrue are just outright lies to deceive people. Companies doing this should legally be required to change their ways.
On the other hand, redbull not literally giving you wings is obvious. Only a child would literally believe this. There's a stark contrast between this and expecting açai in a "strawberry açai" drink.
That was _not_ the claim made in the relevant lawsuit; see the linked article.
See Pepsi and the Harrier jet:
Pepsi attached a value to a Harrier and included it in their catalog with other items you could purchase with pepsi points; it was the only item you could not buy with them.
> Pepsi attached a value to a Harrier and included it in their catalog with other items you could purchase with pepsi points
It wasn't in the catalog, it was in a single commercial that most people interpreted as a joke, likely including the plaintiff.
> Red Bull does not, it turns out, give you wings — even in the figurative sense. Red Bull says in its marketing that the drink can improve concentration and reaction speeds, but the plaintiff in the case said these claims were false and lacked scientific support. While the suit did not allege that plaintiffs were disappointed that they didn't suddenly sprout wings, it does say that Red Bull relies a lot on terms like "wings" and "boost" to give consumers the impression that the drink gives people some sort of physical lift or enhancement.
Those words in blue are links. If you click them, you can read the article that line references and learn what the lawsuit was actually about:
>Red Bull says in its marketing that the drink can improve concentration and reaction speeds, but the plaintiff in the case said these claims were false and lacked scientific support. While the suit did not allege that plaintiffs were disappointed that they didn't suddenly sprout wings, it does say that Red Bull relies a lot on terms like "wings" and "boost" to give consumers the impression that the drink gives people some sort of physical lift or enhancement.
There is a war against our ability to make informed choices about what we put in our bodies, and we are largely just letting it happen.
Well, I sure hope that Barilla pasta sold in the US isn't made in Italy! Why would it be? Ok, maybe shipping wine and other luxury products halfway around the globe makes some sense, but I'm confident pasta can be manufactured to the same quality standards in most of the developed world. It's already bad enough that a brand called Kerrygold is actually shipping butter from Ireland all over Europe just so they can declare it as "Irish butter", or that French or Italian mineral water is being shipped all over the world...
It's strictly true, but it's also misleading.
But I never did a proper comparison, so this is subjective and speculative.
They have to, it's EU regulations. It actually long predates the EU: Article 275 [0] of the Treaty of Versailles is probably not even the first international agreement about the labeling of products.
[0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles/Part_X#A...
I have a bag of Made in Italy pasta I am building up the courage to cook still.
Are you talking about Roundup? You'll be glad to know that it's not only still legal in the EU, but they're actually looking to extend its authorization for another 10 years. So the difference in pasta is probably coming from something else.
[0] in French: https://www.lefigaro.fr/social/glyphosate-bruxelles-propose-...
Else it just sounds like the Place, Japan meme like when Americans lose weight on vacation in Europe and claim they ate the same food/calories (how?) and also neglect to mention they walked 25000 steps.
For me I could eat wheat or drink coffee without problems, but both were multiplicatively bad. I chose coffee, but that lasted about six years and it was off the menu too. There is something about Chinese restaurant egg fried rice that just wrecks me. Popular theory is that they use some sort of filler in the eggs. Or something with their brand of soy sauce. Japanese, consumer soy sauce affects me but nowhere near this much. Tamari seems to be fine.
Taking your example of Kerrygold butter, have you ever tried it? It's _very_ good. I've had various other "premium" butters even sourced locally, and while they are also good in their own ways, there is a distinct flavor difference which I'm willing to pay for.
So if you as a company want to make your customers happy (and keep them as customers) by continuing to provide some certain specific aspect of your product that can only be achieved by producing it in a certain specific location, it's not reasonable to say "just make it local to where you sell it".
Not just Europe...
https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/Kerrygold-Pure-Irish-...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1378245/italy-export-vol...
* sparkling mineral water * mint extract
I don’t know if a single brand exists in the US that uses actual ingredients in flavored water, I’ve always just seen the vague “natural flavor”. But here it was in the random budget store brand
There are no regulations necessary for this - thanks to capitalism, if people want real flavoring in their sparkling water, companies will make it. Regulation is about preventing companies from doing bad things, not about getting them to make good products.
Here's one in France: https://www.badoit.fr/bulles-et-the
It does say "natural white peach flavor", but also "natural flavors". This is supposedly a tea and peach flavored drink. It spells out "peach" and "black tea infusion", but then there's also some other mystery flavor.
Link to recent article detailing this: https://medium.com/@massdatasoft/how-tic-tac-is-misleading-y...
Duh, why would I reasonably expect that the thing which is marketed to me corresponds to the thing delivered to me in the end? Nonsense! That would either require restaurants to up their game to match the beautiful stuff they pretend to sell, or to take actual pictures of the crap they serve. Can you imagine? Let's be serious!
You don't hear any government PR campaigns about keeping traditional food quality, so decisions were and will be made.
Is there evidence of that behind this article's conjecture? Is (American) society changing?
(Is this another twist of the "Where's the beef?" moment?)
> According to Perkins Coie, a law firm that tracks such cases, 214 class-action lawsuits were filed against the food and beverage industry in 2022, and 331 cases were brought the year before.
> It's a major uptick from the 81 cases filed in 2014, less than a decade earlier.
> Is there evidence...
No. But I have seen nothing to suggest a social trend of pushing back against wishful reporting.
Or one could view such embellishments as low-dose mood meds, added to keep people from getting too depressed, due to chronic over-consumption of news...
2. Buy ONE of the product so you have standing for a case
3. Bring million dollar lawsuit against company
4. Profit
That's what two consumers who have sued Starbucks for consumer protection law violations say about the coffee giant's fruit-based drinks.
Where is the wing quote?
This suit is about false advertisement. Those sentences are the first two of the article.
Way to show you didn’t read the article bro.
Pot, meet kettle:
> In 2014, Red Bull announced it would pay more than $13 million to settle a lawsuit brought by buyers who said the energy drink didn't — as the marketing materials promised — "give you wings."
FTA linked in the article:
"Red Bull does not, it turns out, give you wings — even in the figurative sense. Red Bull says in its marketing that the drink can improve concentration and reaction speeds, but the plaintiff in the case said these claims were false and lacked scientific support. While the suit did not allege that plaintiffs were disappointed that they didn't suddenly sprout wings, it does say that Red Bull relies a lot on terms like "wings" and "boost" to give consumers the impression that the drink gives people some sort of physical lift or enhancement."
I agree that in the context of the linked article OP is wrong, and several other people already pointed out the quote you included. I'm responding to the quick and vapid dismissal that shows that imchillyb couldn't be bothered to do a search for "wings" before making fun of OP.
> In 2014, Red Bull announced it would pay more than $13 million to settle a lawsuit brought by buyers who said the energy drink didn't — as the marketing materials promised — "give you wings."
If you go to the source, obviously, the concern was not that it did not literally cause you to grow wings.
>Red Bull says in its marketing that the drink can improve concentration and reaction speeds, but the plaintiff in the case said these claims were false and lacked scientific support. While the suit did not allege that plaintiffs were disappointed that they didn't suddenly sprout wings, it does say that Red Bull relies a lot on terms like "wings" and "boost" to give consumers the impression that the drink gives people some sort of physical lift or enhancement.
So “can improve concentration”? Yes. Clinically proven. “Can improve [anyone’s] concentration”? Well you’re right that’s not true. But that’s relatively recent settled science, in part because there are plenty of anecdotes going back to Coca Cola being the “Thinking man’s drink” with coca leaves in it. Cocaine makes some people more focused. As does amphetamine, and methylphenidate.
But we’ve fucked the words “can” and “may” in legal terms. There is no accident that RFCs use MUST and WILL for mandatory behaviors, or that they’re in all caps.
Drugs are complicated.
It's maladaptive in modern society, for sure, but that's a combination of the trait and modern society. Not necessarily a reflection on the trait in itself.
Even in the perfect utopia, I would need medication to be healthy and enjoy life.
Sorry haha you're right though the lawsuit seems frivolous
> [Red Bull] have made various representations to consumers about the purported superior nature of Red Bull over simpler and less expensive caffeine only products, such as caffeine tablets or a cup of coffee. (...) However, no competent, credible, and reliable scientific evidence exists to support [Red Bull]'s Claims about the product.
Of course the whole purpose of settling is to never bring this issue in front of a court, but the fact that they settled and retired the slogan should, IMO, lend some credibility to this point.
Redbull has to pay 13 million dollars, so possibly not stupid.
Anyway, TFA is about “Mango Dragonfruit Starbucks Refreshers are missing mango, Strawberry Açaí Starbucks Refreshers lack açaí and Pineapple Passionfruit Starbucks Refreshers have no passion fruit.”
So not entirely without merit, also according to a judge.
But it looks like that version of the lawsuit story is itself a highly-misleading claim:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/red-bulls-wings/
https://www.businessinsider.com/red-bull-settles-false-adver...
On the other hand, placing a common fruit in a product's name without making it equally clear that it is flavoring is misleading. At least in a food services type environment. While people can check the list of ingredients on the packaging in a grocery store, they would have to jump through hoops to get similar information when ordering food in a restaurant.
Rather than face federal judicial action, redbull paid out $13 million to settle.
If it’s stupid and it works, it’s not stupid.