Walmart is at the center of a lawsuit alleging deceptive advertising on juice labeled as “100% Cranberry Pomegranate” when the product is actually mostly made up of apple and grape juice concentrates.
The complaint was filed earlier this month by Florida residents who say Walmart’s deceptive advertising also featured pictures of pomegranates and cranberries on its product packaging for the juice that actually contained “miniscule” amounts of the juices promoted on the bottle.
The plaintiffs also claim the retailer was selling the pomegranate cranberry labeled juice for nearly one dollar more than its Great Value brand apple juice, which the plaintiffs claim is “virtually identical” to the lower-priced product.
Claiming that even if Walmart is compliant with FDA juice labeling rules, it does not excuse the practice, the plaintiffs argue, because the labeling was misleading and deceptive. “Indeed, compliance with the minimum requirements is necessary, but is not sufficient to determine if a product’s label is false and misleading, and simply does not provide a shield from liability,” the plaintiffs complaint argued.
The suit comes just six weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of POM Wonderful, which filed a suit against Coca-Cola over its labels in a complaint that’s making “near-identical allegations,” Food Navigator reports. POM alleges that Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid markets a pomegranate-blueberry juice that contains negligible amounts of both pomegranate and blueberry juices. POM makes a pomegranate-blueberry juice blend using pure juices and claimed Coca-Cola’s product was deceptive. In its defense, Coca-Cola said it met the minimums of the FDA standards, which a lower court agreed with. The Supreme Court reversed that decision.
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