Food/Groceries

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Hey Campbell’s, Where’s the Beef?

The Campbell Soup Company was recently sued by a New York consumer who said she was misled by Campbell’s Chunky soup label “Beef with Country Vegetables” which has more vegetables than beef.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Campbell's Chunky Beef & Veg

The ingredients statement above shows that there is more water, carrots and potatoes in the can than beef. In fact, the entire 18.8 ounce can has 15 grams of protein, which is only about two ounces of beef!

One has to wonder if Campbell’s took lessons from The Three Stooges on how to make cheap soup?

By contrast, Progresso beef and vegetable soup, has beef as the primary solid ingredient after broth and water.

The consumer’s lawyer further argues that the product should be labeled “Vegetables and Beef” since vegetables predominate over beef. He may be thinking of label rules that require On-Cor, for example, to call the product below “gravy and turkey” because there is more gravy in it than turkey:
en-cor turkey
I don’t know if those rules apply here. The product in question is beef soup and it probably doesn’t even need to have pieces of beef in it.

I think the chances of this case succeeding are… m’m, m’m not good.

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Kettle Chips: When Cutting the Fat Doesn’t Cut the Calories

When a product is air fried, one expects it to have fewer calories. Such doesn’t seem to be the case, however, with Kettle Chips.

Here is the regular variety of Kettle chips. It has 140 calories per ounce and nine grams of fat.

Regular Kettle Chips

Now here is the “air fried” Kettle chips.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Air Fried Kettle Chips

This variety says “air fried” in huge letters, but in small type that some people might miss, it says “kettle cooked, air finished.” What? The chips are really deep-fat fried, but then blown dry, so to speak?

That alone could be misleading, and so the company was just sued in March by a consumer.

But look closer, comparing the two nutrition labels. The air-fried product says 30% less fat than the regular version, and sure enough, it has six grams of fat per ounce versus nine grams of fat. But how is it possible that the bag with less fat has the exact same amount of calories per ounce? The ingredients in both products seem to be in the same order of predominance.

We asked Campbell’s Soup, the maker of Kettle chips, for an explanation. They did not reply.

Now it is your turn. What could explain that there is no change in calories in the air-fried product despite having one-third less fat?

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Movie Theater Drinks Not 24-oz. As Promised

Earlier this year, a Texas consumer went to a local Cinemark theater and bought both a 20-ounce beverage and a 24-ounce draft beer. Somehow he suspected that the 24-ounce clear plastic cup didn’t look like it held four more ounces compared to 20-ounce one.

He took the cups home and measured how much liquid the larger one actually held. To his surprise, it only held 22 ounces despite being sold as the 24-ounce size and actually being marked as such on the bottom.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Cinemark 24 oz cup

After hearing about the issue, this TV reporter tested one of the 24-ounce cups herself to see if what the consumer claimed was true.

Sure enough, the consumer was right. And as any aggrieved customer would do, he hired a lawyer and sued the movie chain for misrepresentation.

One has to wonder how many consumers across Cinemark’s over 300 theaters have been shortchanged, and for how long (if these cups were used chainwide)? Does this now mean that in addition to sneaking in snacks to the movie theater, we also have to bring a measuring cup?