Supermarket chain Aldi has been named in a class action lawsuit in California that alleges it misrepresented its fruit and grain bars to consumers by claiming they only contain natural products.
In a filing with the U.S. District Court for central California on May 30, a lawyer for plaintiff Deana Lozano, a health care administrator and amateur athlete, argued that despite the product’s packaging claims that the bars have “no artificial flavors” and were “naturally flavored,” laboratory testing had found they contained DL malic acid, a synthetic flavoring.
The lawsuit is demanding $9,999,000 in damages for customers who bought the product in the past four years and alleges Aldi’s packaging violates several California codes and had precipitated the “unjust enrichment” of the company.
Newsweek reached out to Aldi U.S. via email on Friday for comment.
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The lawsuit relates to the budget retailer’s Millville Fruit & Grain cereal bars, which come in a range of flavors including apple, strawberry and blueberry. An ingredients list for the bars on Amazon shows they contain malic acid, which can be made through natural and synthetic processes.
The lawsuit alleges that Aldi, “through its marketing and labeling of the products, misrepresented and deceived consumers regarding the flavoring in the products,” which it “did so for the purpose of enriching itself and it in fact enriched itself by doing so.”
It cited a 2018 report by LEK Consulting which found that consumers were increasingly seeking healthy foods, with between 60 and 70 percent of the 1,559 respondents to its survey saying they were willing to pay more for food products with natural and ethically sourced ingredients.
The court documents allege that the demand “led to an explosion” of so-called “clean label” products in recent years, but that naturally occurring malic acid “is extremely expensive to formulate in large quantities and is almost never used in mass-produced food products.” Newsweek could not independently verify this claim.
The lawsuit noted that synthetic malic acid “is manufactured in petrochemical plants from benzene or butane—components of gasoline and lighter fluid, respectively.” According to the National Library of Medicine, it is produced by “catalytic oxidation of benzene” and is deemed to be of “low concern” by the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Testing by an independent third-party laboratory has confirmed that the malic acid that defendant uses in these products is DL malic acid,” the lawsuit alleges, adding: “The ingredients on the products’ label are declared in a way that is misleading and contrary to law, because [the] defendant designates the ingredient by its generic name.”
The legal proceeding was brought “on behalf of all consumers in California who purchased the products” since May 30, 2019, and the lawsuit is demanding a trial by jury.
It alleges seven counts against Aldi U.S., including four supposed violations of the California Business & Professions Code, one violation of the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and a breach of express warranty—a specific promise made by a vendor to a buyer regarding a product.
“The products do not conform to the express warranty that the products are ‘Naturally Flavored’ and contain ‘No Artificial Flavors,’ because they are flavored by and contain ingredients that are unnatural and synthetic,” the court documents claim.
Newsweek reached out to Charles Weller, a San Diego, California-based attorney representing Lozano, via email on Friday for comment.
Several recent lawsuits against companies over products containing malic acid that have alleged misrepresentation of natural flavorings have been dismissed by judges.
In February, a U.S. district judge in New York dismissed a case against Coca-Cola that claimed its Piña Colada flavored soda was “deceptive and misleading” because the label professed “100 percent natural flavors,” even though the drink contained synthetic malic acid. The court found that the labelling “would not mislead a reasonable consumer.”
The same court dismissed another case at the same time brought against Kraft Heinz over the labeling of its Mango Peach MiO concentrated enhancer that also contained synthetic malic acid.