Food/Groceries

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Breyers to Pay $8.8-mil Over Misleading Natural Vanilla Labeling

Connoisseurs of vanilla ice cream generally prefer products made from real vanilla beans that are in the product evidenced by with those little black specs. And that is exactly what purchasers of Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream should expect to get.

You can see the little black specs depicted in the scoop of ice cream right on the front of their packages along with a picture of vanilla beans and their flowers.

Breyer's Vanilla

We wrote about Breyers Natural Vanilla back in 2016 concerning a separate issue when the ingredients statement explicitly listed “vanilla beans.” Now, that is no longer stated. (See original story.)

So recently some crafty consumer lawyers decided to have the product chemically analyzed to see if it had real or artificial vanilla or both.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Laboratory analysis, specifically by the Center for Advanced Food Technology at Rutgers University, demonstrated that Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream contains vanilla flavor from non-vanilla plant sources.

The testing of Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream did not detect p-hydroxybenzaldehyde, vanillic acid or p-hydroxybenzoic acid, which means the Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream has, at most, a small amount of real vanilla…

So they sued Unilever in June (see complaint) and believe it or not, they already announced a tentative settlement.

Therefore, if you bought any size container of Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream from April 21, 2016 through August 14, 2024, you are entitled to get one dollar back for each one. If you have proofs of purchase, you can claim as many as you bought. Otherwise, the maximum claim is for eight cartons and you can get back $8. File a claim here.

The company is also being required to reformulate the product and not include vanilla flavor derived from non-vanilla plant sources.

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Robitussin Puts Non-Drowsy Lawsuit to Bed

In 2022, two different consumers sued the makers of Robitussin alleging that package claims of the products being non-drowsy were false and misleading. (See complaint.)

In particular, the suits said that one of the active ingredients in these cough suppressants, dextromethorphan (DXM), was actually known to cause drowsiness. Further, the complaints alleged that the “drug facts” disclosure on the back of the boxes did not warn about possible drowsiness.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Robitussin DM

The plaintiffs also cited various medical studies supporting the fact that DXM could make one sleepy, and pointed out that the Federal Aviation Administration advised pilots not to fly if they have taken it.

In 2023, the case was decided in favor of the manufacturer on the theory that the state law consumer violations cited were pre-empted by the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act governing drug products like this. The consumers appealed.

Despite that, the parties negotiated with each other since the court decision, and came to a settlement of the claims for $4.5-million. The company has agreed to discontinue the non-drowsy claims. Purchasers as far back as 2016 may be entitled to between $1.50 and $4.75 per claim. More details will be available after a judge signs off on the agreement.

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How Skimpflation Works in Restaurants

In October last year, Red Robin announced an upgrade — that it had a “new and improved lineup of gourmet burgers” that were “juicier and more flavorful.”

This August, Red Robin further announced a limited time promotion for a gourmet cheeseburger and unlimited fries for $10. No doubt, this is a pretty good deal given fast food prices and portion sizes today.

Red Robin $10 promotion

One Red Robin regular, WiseSofa1748, commented on their burgers in the following post, saying they are not as good as they used to be because the reason they are juicier is that they are fattier.

The new burgers they use suck. The old ones they had for years and years were so good. I asked the store manager when I last went and she told me it was really to cut costs, they went to a less lean, cheaper cut of beef that allowed it to be “juicier” aka more fat and slightly bigger bc its a crappier cut. It doesn’t taste near as good. Same for the bun and cheese she said, both were swapped out and Red Robin claimed it was for taste but as always it was to save a buck.

Are the consumer and the manager right? We did a little detective work to compare the current nutritional disclosures for their gournet cheeseburger with the previous listing from a year earlier, excerpted below.

*MOUSE PRINT:
Red Robin Nutritional comparison

Indeed, the amount of fat content went up, while the amount of protein went down. Since the company announced that it was making its burgers bigger and juicier last year, that could account for the increase in fat. However, the amount of protein should have gone up too if the company maintained the same lean to fat ratio.

We made multiple requests of the company to find out if they made the alleged changes to their burgers, but they did not respond.

While the media focuses on shrinkflation a lot these days, skimpflation is even more insidious. With shrinkflation, at least you can objectively discover when a product shrinks. But with skimpflation, product tweaks or reformulations are not generally announced or easy to discern.

We don’t know the recipes used by restaurants, the exact portion size you normally get, the grades of meat they buy, the quality or quantity of all the ingredients used in a dish, etc. So it is even easier to tinker with these things and most consumers would be none the wiser.

If you spot an example of skimpflation, please send the details and any proof you can unearth to Edgar (at symbol) MousePrint.org. Thanks.