False advertising lawsuit against Back to Nature Foods Co revived

Back to Nature Foods false advertising overview: 

• Who: A federal appeals court has revived a class action lawsuit filed against Back to Nature Foods.
• Why: The appeals judges ruled that a lower court had wrongly dismissed claims that the company falsely advertised some of its wheat crackers.  
• Where: The decision was made by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

A federal appeals court has revived a class action lawsuit alleging Back to Nature Foods falsely advertises the flour that its Stoneground Wheat Crackers are made with.

Plaintiff Gracemarie Venticinque had her class action complaint against Nature Foods Company LLC dismissed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Aug. 2023. 

A judge ruled Venticinque had failed to state a claim and denied her leave to amend her complaint on futility grounds. 

But Venticinque appealed the decision, and now the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has nullified the lower court’s judgment, reopened the case and sent it back to the Southern District to reconsider the claims. 

A reasonable customer could be misled, judges rule

Venticinque alleges that the label of the Stoneground Wheat Crackers is “deceptive” and “misleading,” violating New York General Business Law.

She says that the words “Organic Whole Wheat Flour” advertised on the product’s front label misleadingly represent that the predominant flour in the crackers is organic whole wheat flour.

However, the crackers are actually made with organic unbleached enriched wheat flour, she alleges. 

While the district court ruled that Venticinque failed to plead adequately that a reasonable consumer would be misled by the Stoneground Wheat Crackers label, the appeals court disagreed.

“Plaintiff has plausibly alleged that a reasonable consumer would read the words “Organic Whole Wheat Flour” on the front of the box and conclude that whole wheat flour is the predominant type of flour in the crackers,” the judges ruled. 

In 2022, B&G Foods recalled 1,855 cases of Back to Nature Cheddalicious Cheese Flavored Crackers because the cracker boxes were inadvertently filled with foil-wrapped pouches of animal-shaped crackers, which contain undeclared egg and milk.

What do you think of the allegations in this Back to Nature Foods false advertising lawsuit? Let us know in the comments.

The plaintiff is represented by Michael R. Reese of Reese LLP; Lisa S. Mankofsky at the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Kenneth D. Quat of Quat Law Offices. 

The Back to Nature class action lawsuit is Gracemarie Venticinque v. Nature Foods Company LLC, Case No. 23-1236  in the United States Court Of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

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