Pacific Foods Class Action Says Almondmilk Lacks Vanilla

A class action lawsuit claims that Pacific Foods organic almondmilk is primarily flavored with imitation vanilla as opposed to real vanilla, as the packaging suggests.

The almondmilk class action lawsuit was filed by Marc Nelles who says he relied on the labeling to make his purchasing decision, believing the product to be flavored with real vanilla, as implied by the front label.

Allegedly, it was not until after he purchased the almondmilk that he discovered it was flavored primarily with imitation vanilla.

The packaging is reportedly misleading because its front is not labeled “flavored” — rather, the packaging merely says “vanilla,” and not “flavored with natural flavors,” or “non-vanilla flavors.”

Nelles says that consumers will understand this presence of “vanilla” on the container to mean that the product is made from real vanilla.

In Nelles’ words, the result of this kind of labeling is that purchasers will assume that the almondmilk “contains a sufficient amount of vanilla to flavor the product, without being ‘reinforced’ by synthetic flavor enhancers.”

According to the Pacific Foods class action lawsuit, the product is reinforced by synthetic flavors. Nelles argues that this makes it less valuable to consumers than it would be if it had been made with just real vanilla.

Nelles notes that vanilla is one of the most popular flavors in general. In addition to its popularity, the Pacific Foods almondmilk class action lawsuit notes that vanilla is one of the world’s most expensive flavors and is at high risk for imitation because there are many vanilla substitutes that approximate the flavor of real vanilla.

Allegedly, Pacific Foods used imitation flavors in addition to vanilla in order to approximate the flavor of vanilla without spending as much money as would be required to flavor the product entirely with vanilla.

To support this claim, the Pacific Foods class action lawsuit notes that the ingredient list lists “natural flavors” ahead of “vanilla,” indicating that the flavoring of the product came primarily from natural flavors that were not vanilla. 

Allegedly, though vanilla is a natural flavor, it is conventional for the most specific form of an ingredient to be listed, so Nelles argues that if the product were primarily flavored with vanilla, vanilla would have appeared before “natural flavors” on the ingredient list, and not after.

Additionally, if there had been no imitation vanilla, the Pacific Foods class action claims that “natural flavors” would not have appeared at all on the list. 

Nelles notes that some imitation vanilla substances are made with natural ingredients, so though the products are imitation vanilla they are labeled as natural flavors, in an effort to further confuse consumers about the presence of imitation vanilla.

Have you purchased a vanilla-flavored product and later discovered it was made from imitation vanilla? Share your experiences in the comment section below.

Nelles is represented by Spencer Sheehan of Sheehan & Associates PC, Michael R. Reese of Reese LLP, and Peter N. Wasylyk of the Law Offices of Peter N. Wasylyk.

The Pacific Foods Imitation Vanilla Class Action Lawsuit is Marc Nelles v. Pacific Foods of Oregon LLC, Case No. 1:19-cv-11025, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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