Cookie Do Customers Say Raw Cookie Dough Falsely Marketed as ‘Safe’

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.

Two New York women say Cookie Do has been falsely representing its food products as safe to eat, even while thousands of customers report getting sick.

Plaintiffs Julia Canigiani and Katherine Byrne say they both got sick after eating raw cookie dough products sold by defendant Cookie Do Inc.

They now claim Cookie Do has been falsely marketing its products as being completely safe to eat when in fact they’re not, putting thousands of consumers at risk for food-borne illness.

At its retail location in New York City, Cookie Do serves cookie dough for immediate consumption without baking. The store’s presentation mimics that of a traditional ice cream parlor.

Retail customers can get unbaked cookie dough by the scoop, fully baked cookies, fudge, milkshakes, and ice cream sandwiches. Cookie Do also sells and ships products through its retail website.

Throughout Cookie Do’s promotional materials, plaintiffs say, the company assures customers that its cookie dough is safe to eat.

According to the plaintiffs, the landing page of Cookie Do’s website claims “it is completely safe to eat the way you’ve been sneaking it for years – straight from the mixing bowl.” A set of Frequently Asked Questions on the website reportedly says that “all ingredients in each of our delicious, homemade recipes are completely safe to consume just as they are – unbaked.”

Elsewhere in the FAQ, Cookie Do represents that it uses heat-treated flour and a pasteurized egg product in place of fresh eggs, supposedly eliminating the possibility of food-borne illness.

But Canigiani and Byrne say they had an experience that was utterly inconsistent with those assurances. In March 2017, the plaintiffs and some of their friends went to Cookie Do’s retail location in New York.

Canigiani says she ordered an ice cream “Sandowich,” made of ice cream between two layers of chocolate chip cookie dough. She says she began to feel stomach pain within 15 minutes, then suffered from vomiting and diarrhea the rest of that evening.

Byrne says she took only a few bites of her single-scoop Oatmeal M&M cookie dough before she felt nauseated. She had heartburn, stomach ache and nausea through the middle of the next day, she claims.

The two plaintiffs are apparently not alone. They quote several reports from Yelp reviewers who say they suffered all manner of gastrointestinal distress after eating Cookie Do products.

Canigiani and Byrne say that were it not for Cookie Do’s allegedly false representations about the safety of its cookie dough products, neither they nor their proposed Class Members would have bought them.

Canigiani and Byrne are proposing to represent a nationwide plaintiff Class consisting of all persons in the U.S. who since March 17, 2014 purchased edible cookie dough either from Cookie Do’s website or its physical retail store at 550 LaGuardia Place in New York City and later became ill.

They are asking the court for a damage award including punitive, treble and consequential damages, and an injunction barring Cookie Do from continuing the allegedly unlawful practices in dispute here.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorney Brittany Weiner of Imbesi Law PC.

The Cookie Do False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Canigiani and Byrne v. Cookie Do Inc., Case No. 1:17-cv-07812, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.