Decades ago, General Mills introduced us to Fruit Roll-ups, a supposedly healthy snack “made with real fruit.” Indeed, below is a picture of an older box of strawberry Fruit Roll-ups, with the claims that it is “made from real fruit” and that it is “naturally flavored.”
Well, it seems that at least one consumer actually read the ingredients statement and was surprised by what she found.
*MOUSE PRINT:
Annie Lam was shocked to find that the strawberry snack she bought not only had no strawberries in it, it was actually made with pears, and a bunch of other additives and chemicals. And unlike most consumers who would shrug off this afront, she filed a class action lawsuit against the company.
General Mills asked that the suit be dismissed, but the judge ruled last week that it could go forward because:
“Reasonable consumers might be misled by packaging that claimed the snacks are ‘made with real fruit,’ and would not read the fine print.” — U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti
“Pears from concentrate” means concentrated pear juice: it may have been filtered to remove some or all of the solids, but even if it hasn’t, it’s still basically pure sugar. The next three ingredients are sugar. The last boldfaced one is a bit of fat for mouthfeel. There’s a smidgin of vitamin C added because whatever might have been present in the pears has been destroyed in the processing, and people expect fruit to have it: it’s cheap to manufacture, and by adding it, the company can advertise its presence, so parents make the unconscious connection between this product and fresh fruit. Otherwise, these “fruit snacks” are indistinguishable from gummy worms, jelly beans, or any other candy.
Not to ruin anyone’s fun or anything, but these things really are evil. At least candy doesn’t pretend it’s healthy.
Doesn’t the fact they they use pear concentrate mean they are using “real fruit”? Granted it’s not exactly right from the tree but it did start there. Now if they would have used ‘artificial pear extract’ that would be a different story.
While one you expect them to use strawberries, the box doesn’t say “Made with real strawberries”. It says “real fruit.”
Technically, I think the company is in the right here.
You want to know what else is “made with real fruit”, has natural flavors, and a ton of Vitamin C? FRUIT. Just eat the damn fruit, and cut out these “frankenfoods” from your diet.
Johngage, pear concentrate really just means “sugar”. And it is still extremely misleading if they call it strawberry but it was made with pears, sort of like when they used to try to sell you imitation crab meat and just call it crab meat.
Would you buy lobster to find out it is just white fish?
The distinction between “natural” flavoring and artifical flavoring is pure BS anyway. Natural flavor just means it’s derived from some kind of plant/mineral, while artificial flavor is derived from chemicals.
Where does pear concentrate come from? Real pears. What does the box say? Made with real fruit. In my opinion, finding out something as processed as strawberry fruit roll ups is made with other fruits besides strawberries is not a shock.
So all Betty Crocker would have to so is throw in .00001% of one strawberry into each box, put that into the ingredients list and this whole lawsuit would be worthless.
This is misleading the consumer even if real fruit is used.
Betty Crocker can try to argue that the Natural flavors part of the ingredients list includes that so called strawberry flavor Annie Lam is looking for.
By displaying an image of strawberries and the words “Strawberry Sensation” near the “Made With Real Fruit” statement, consumers are lulled into assuming it’s made from strawberries while it’s actually made from pears and has *ZERO* strawberry fruit content. GM did not tell a lie, it simply nudged consumers to create the lie for themselves by juxtapositioning 3 independent pieces of information that, while individually accurate, create a lie when considered in combination. GM could have stated “Made With Pear Concentrate” instead of “Made With Real Fruit” but that would have given the game away. Much better to use “Real Fruit” and let consumers create the lie for themselves. I hope Ms. Lam wins big but fear the law’s on GM’s side.
I agree with anonymous!
All the lawsuits that are filed today really annoy me. It’s just a way for people to get money for nothing. Why didn’t she just write a letter of complaint to the company? If Annie Lam didn’t like the ingredients, then she shouldn’t buy the product. Pear concentrate was the first ingredient meaning it is the most quantitiy. If she is looking for real fruit, then buy fruit! If people care about what they are buying, they look at the ingredients and make their choice based on that. If the product doesn’t sell, it goes off the market. It’s a simple choice – buy or not buy. Unless of course you just want the money!
Why is strawberries not the first ingredient on the list??? The front of the box says Strawberry Sensation…
I noticed that too on the Fiber One Oats and Strawberry bars – not actual strawberries, just “natural strawberry fruit pieces” – this included cranberries! I did write to them about this, but I can’t remember now what they said….
I wager Ms. McDevitt hasn’t seen the movie Soylent Green en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
Hey, it’s only “high-energy plankton” don’t you know? Yum, yum!
It’s always the greedy consumer’s fault, isn’t it? Might she be an industry shill? Hahahahahahaha!
A few years ago I was looking at the ingredients in peach oatmeal packets and noticed that the “peach” bits were actually peach-flavored, dyed apples. Who knew?!
I hope she wins and wins big. I m so sick of the big food companies trying to pass off food that isn’t what they say it is to consumers. Things like this, Strawbery-less Strawberry fruit roll-ups, Pink slime in ground beef, Fruit juice that doesn’t have any of the branded fruit in it, cheese products that have no cheese, high fiber products that contain sawdust. This kind of fraud has to stop, and if this lawsuit serves as an awakening to the food producers, then I say Go For It!!
Read “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan for a very interesting and enlightening discussion of how the “food” industry has tricked us all into eating so much that isn’t actually food.
There’s a reason I quit buying these for my kid; they’re nothing more than artificial sugar bombs.
If you want to change the way these companies do business with regards to what they put in your food, start reading the labels and change your buying habits. If people would pay attention to what they shove in their mouths and revolt against the garbage the Food Industry sticks in the box, the industry will have to change its habits. They used to make products with real food and they probably still have the recipes lying around.
If you want “real fruit” fruit snacks, try the Archer Farms brand from Target. Ingredients: fruit puree, fruit juice, pectin, vitamin C and vegetable juice for color. By Golly! It can be done without corn syrup, corn sugar and unpronouncable garabage and still taste really good.
Sure Julie it can be done the right way. Even Trader Joes does it the right way.
Corn Syrup is just cheap….
Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, the judge has ruled in GM’s favor http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2012/05/is-it-true-no-is-it-legal-yes.html
I think she’s going to lose. It’s “Strawberry Sensation”, not “Strawberry”. It’s made with real fruit, as claimed. All the ingredients are right there on the label.
Parents, and everyone else: read the labels on what you buy for your kids & for yourself. We don’t live under socialism (yet). Lazy and/or stupid consumers don’t fare well in our system. It’s up to the consumer not to buy crap. Oh, and expect to pay more for quality.
Also, exercise your free speech and complain to General Mills about this product if you don’t like it or the packaging. They’ll say they are not misleading or other consumers don’t seem to mind blah blah blah. But if they hear from enough consumers, and if people quit buying this junk, they’ll change. That’s the good side of a free market economy.
It’s as bad as all those blueberry muffin mixes, the ones where the box shows all those great big ripe blueberries, but they have zero percent blueberries, it is just sugar cubes.
I applaud Annie for taking on this difficult, likely expensive and lonely task. A letter to the mfg. would accomplish nothing but likely get her on a list of consumer nuts in some corporate database. What is simultaneously the most shocking and depressing, it that consumers have to play this game in the first place. It’s nothing more that a shell game INTENTIONALLY designed to confuse and mislead consumers. What does the Consumer Protection Agency actually do? If they don’t protect us from such obvious trickery, they they, themselves, are no better than P&G.
A friend pointed me to this lawsuit against Nutella’s heath claims that actually won. I know health claims are different from ingredient claims, but are these cases substantially different? “Strawberry Sensation Fruit Roll-ups” sounds like an implicit claim for at least some strawberry fruit to be present in the product. http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/today-food-finance-nutella-not-broccoli-162956191.html