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Three months after a federal judge in California gave the preliminary thumbs up to a $3.4m settlement of a class action lawsuit accusing Trader Joe’s of falsely advertising products as ‘all natural’, a fellow judge has allowed most claims in similar lawsuit against fellow retailer Whole Foods Market to proceed.

 The lawsuit- originally filed in November 2013 by plaintiffs Mary garrison et al – accused Whole Foods of misleadingly and unlawfully labeling muffins and other baked goods as ‘All Natural’ when in fact they contain Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (SAPP), a ”
synthetic ingredient” used as a leavening agent.

(In January 2014, Garrison lodged another complaint over six additional SAPP-containing product.)

In a June 2 order rejecting most of Whole Foods’ challenges to both complaints, US district judge Vince Chhabria rejected arguments that the ‘all-natural’ claims were pre-empted by the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

He also rejected Whole Food’ claims that primary jurisdiction should apply (eg. that the FDA is best-placed to decide what is ‘all-natural’), adding:
“FDA has repeatedly declined to adopt formal regulations regarding the meaning of the word natural… there is no clear indication the agency intends to revisit this decision any time soon.”

Judge to Whole Foods: Reasonable consumers might assume that ‘all-natural’ products don’t contain SAPP

While Whole Foods said Garrison had not proved consumers were likely to be deceived by it’s labeling, Judge Chhabria begged to differ, adding that it was plausible that a reasonable consumer ”
could interpret the words ‘all-natural’ to exclude synthetic compounds such as SAPP, and therefore be misled by Whole Foods’ labeling“. And at this stage of the proceedings, ”
that is sufficient“, he said.