Whole Foods Baked Goods Class Action Lawsuit Survives Dismissal Bid

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

A California judge has refused to dismiss a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Whole Foods Market Inc. of misleadingly and unlawfully labeling some its products as “All Natural” when they allegedly contain synthetic ingredients.

In November 2013, plaintiffs Mary and Grace Garrison filed the Whole Foods class action lawsuit, claiming that from Nov. 8, 2009 to the present, the labels of several Whole Foods baked goods prominently included the term “All Natural” despite allegedly contain ingredients such as sodium acid pyrophosphate, maltodextrin and other synthetic ingredients. They further allege that they would not have purchased the products if not for the misrepresentation.

On June 2, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria rejected nearly all challenges that the health food grocer threw at a proposed Whole Foods class action lawsuit, dismissing only claims for unjust enrichment, injunctive relief, and claims based on representations not contained on the product labels themselves. The Garrisons will be allowed to amend these claims and file an amended class action lawsuit.

The products questioned in the Whole Foods class action lawsuit are the store’s “all natural” gluten-free apples, gluten-free cheddar biscuits, gluten-free corn bread, gluten-free molasses ginger cookies, and gluten-free chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.

“If Whole Foods’ labeling was misleading, the named plaintiffs suffered the same injury from the products they purchased as unnamed Class Members suffered from purchasing different products bearing the same label,” Judge Chhabria said. “By establishing that any of the labels were misleading, the plaintiffs would necessarily establish that they all were. The named plaintiffs therefore have the necessary stake in litigating the class’s claims required to confer standing.”

The judge also tossed Whole Foods’ suggestion that the class action lawsuit should be dismissed until the U.S. Food and rug Administration can promulgate a formal definition of the word “natural.”

“There is no clear indication the agency intends to revisit this decision any time soon,” the judge said. “There is therefore no resolution of the issue pending before the agency to which the court could defer.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Matthew R. Bainer, Molly A. DeSario, Courtland W. Creekmore and Jessica Lynn Campbell of Scott Cole & Associates APC.

The Whole Foods Baked Goods Class Action Lawsuit is Garrison, et al. v. Whole Foods Market Inc., Case No. 3:13-cv-05222 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

In January, the Garrisons filed another related class action lawsuit over six additional Whole Food’s baked good products: banana bran, blueberry and coffee cake mini-muffins; and chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and snickerdoodle soft baked cookies. That case is Garrison v. Whole Foods Market California Inc., et al., Case No. 3:14-cv-00334.

UPDATE: On Mar. 10, 2016, Whole Foods Market asked a judge to dismiss an amended class action lawsuit that claims several baked good products labeled as “all natural” contain synthetic ingredients.

UPDATE 2: On Mar. 29, 2016, a federal judge ruled that some of the claims in the proposed class action lawsuit over “all natural” labeling would remain, but nixed claims regarding the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and breach of contract.

UPDATE 3: On June 7, 2016, Whole Foods agreed to settle two class action lawsuits alleging the high-end organic grocery chain falsely labeled certain baked good products as “all natural.”