Snack Time: Court Finds Prominent Pictures Of Produce On Fruit Snacks Not Deceptive

Last month, the Northern District of California held that prominent photographs of fruits and vegetables on Plum Organics' food packaging were not enough to mislead a reasonable consumer into believing that the pictured produce were the product's predominant ingredients. A picture on food packaging may speak a thousand words but, according to the court, reasonable consumers know to look at the FDA-required ingredients list on the product package for a product's primary ingredients.

In Workman v. Plum Inc., No. 15-cv-2568 (WHA) (N.D. Cal.), the court granted Plum Organics' motion to dismiss against a putative class of consumers. At issue were pictures of four ingredients prominently displayed on Plum Organics' Mighty 4 puree pouches and fruit bars, a line of snacks marketed for consumption by toddlers. The packaging of one such Mighty 4 puree pouch displayed pictures of pumpkin, pomegranate, quinoa and yogurt. While the puree pouch did contain each of these ingredients to some extent, the primary ingredients were actually pureed apple, pear or banana. The issue was whether the product packaging misled consumers into believing that these four foods constituted the primary ingredients of the snack.

The court found that a reasonable consumer would not simply assume that the size of the pictured ingredients on the food's packaging correlated to their predominance in the product. The court emphasized that supermarkets are filled with products displaying large pictures of fruits and vegetables on their labels that are not the primary ingredients. According to the court, every reasonable shopper knows that "the devil is in the details"; here, Plum Organics' back panel ingredient list enumerated each of the snack's ingredients in order of predominance, as required by the FDA. Thus, in the court's view, the ingredient list resolved...