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UPDATE:
- A judge dismissed the Sara Lee pound cake class action lawsuit April 28, 2021.
Sara Lee All Butter Pound Cake is also part soybean oil, and the company uses yellow food coloring to make its cake appear more buttery, a new nationwide class action lawsuit alleges.
Plaintiff Paula Salouras filed a claim against Sara Lee Frozen Bakery in Illinois federal court Tuesday, alleging the company illegally misrepresents the cake as containing only butter, when it also contains other shortening.
“Though the Product contains butter, it also contains another shortening agreement that is not butter—soybean oil,” the class action lawsuit alleges.
Ccustomers prefer butter to chemically-produced “vegetable” oils when baking, the class action states, for reasons including taste, health, and “avoidance of highly processed artificial substitutes for butter.”
Salouras says butter costs more than soybean oil, and when customers see the label saying “All Butter,” they expect the product to be all butter.
The class action also alleges Sara Lee uses a yellow food coloring to make its pound cake look more buttery.
“The use of annatto is permitted in butter, but used in the product, annatto bolsters [Sara Lee’s] misrepresentation that the product contains more butter than it does,” the claim says.
Through misrepresenting the product as only using butter, Sara Lee artificially inflated the price of its cake to $3.99 for 10.75oz minus tax, the class action alleges.
“Defendant sold more of the Product and at higher prices than it would have in the absence of this misconduct, resulting in additional profits at the expense of Plaintiff and other members of the putative class.”
Salouras is suing Sara Lee for breach of warranty and unjust enrichment, along with violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.
She is seeking to represent any United States resident who bought the pound cake since Jan. 1, 2016, plus an Illinois Subclass, and is asking for certification of the class action, compensatory damages, a label change bringing Sara Lee’s cake in line with customer expectations, interest, fees, costs and a jury trial.
This is the latest class action Sara Lee is facing over its marketing of the pound cake, with a New York man filing a similar complaint last year.
Would you be surprised if an “all butter pound cake” contained soybean oil? Let us know in the comments!
Salouras is represented by Ben Barnow and Anthony L. Parkhill of Barnow & Associates PC.
The Sara Lee All Butter Class Action Lawsuit is Paula Salouras v. Sara Lee Frozen Bakery LLC, Case No. 1:21-cv-02117, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
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551 thoughts onSara Lee Makes Pound Cake Sound More Buttery Than It Is, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges
please add me
I feel deceived. Please add me.
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