Cascadian Farm Class Action: Fruits, Veggies Sourced Outside of Wash.

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.

Small Planet Foods Inc. and General Mills Inc. are facing a class action lawsuit alleging they misrepresent Cascadian Farm brand frozen fruits and vegetables as being grown on an organic farm in Washington when they are actually sourced from all over the world.

Plaintiff Brendan Peacock says the defendants have amassed substantial profits by the misrepresentation that the fruits and vegetables are grown on an organic farm in “Skagit Valley, WA.”

The Cascadian Farm class action lawsuit asserts that the name of the brand, “Cascadian Farm,” along with packaging that includes a photograph of a farm with the Cascade mountains in the background is meant to mislead consumers into believing the products are sourced from an organic farm in Skagit Valley.

Peacock notes that the packaging also encourages consumers to “VISIT OUR HOME FARM, SKAGIT VALLEY, WA SINCE 1972.”

According to the Cascadian Farm class action lawsuit, the product packaging says, “We’ve outgrown our Home Farm in Skagit Valley, but you can still visit the place where it all started.”

While the packaging does state the true origin of the fruits and vegetables, the disclosure is reportedly located on the back of the packaging and in much smaller font than the other representations on the package.

“In many cases, it is printed sideways, and is thus only readable if the consumer turns the Product package sideways and examines the small text box,” Peacock says in the Cascadian Farms class action lawsuit.

Peacock claims that the defendants’ packaging for the Cascadian Farm products intentionally misleads consumers into believing the fruits and vegetables are grown from the Skagit Valley farm when many of the products are obtained from foreign countries, such as Mexico and Chile, and imported into the United States.

The remainder of the fruits and vegetables are predominantly grown on farms located elsewhere in the United States, not at the Cascadian Farm location in Skagit Valley.

According to the Cascadian Farm class action lawsuit, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations state that a food is misbranded if the label expresses a geographical origin of the food that is not a truthful representation of the food’s geographical origin.

Peacock accuses the defendants of unfairly attempting to capitalize on consumers’ growing desire for organic produce grown on small domestic farms. According to the Cascadian Farm class action lawsuit, General Mills directs and controls the marketing of the Cascadian Farm brand but uses Small Planet, which it acquired in 1999, to conceal the fact that consumers are buying the frozen fruits and vegetables from a “massive, multinatural agrobusiness, which has purchased the produce it sells under the Cascadian Farm brand from large farms all over the world.”

General Mills furthers the alleged misrepresentation on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media feeds for the Cascadian Farm brand, which post photographs from the home farm in Skagit Valley without disclosing that the products are unlikely to contain any produce from this farm.

Peacock filed the Cascadian Farm class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and a proposed Class of consumers who purchased Cascadian Farm frozen fruits and/or vegetables in California since Feb. 28, 2014.

The Cascadian Farm class action lawsuit assert claims for violations of the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act; false advertising; fraud, deceit and/or misrepresentation; and unfair, unlawful and deceptive trade practices.

Peacock is represented by Adam J. Gutride, Seth A. Safier and Marie McCrary of Gutride Safier LLP.

The Cascadian Farm Frozen Vegetables Class Action Lawsuit is Brendan Peacock v. Small Planet Foods Inc., et al., Case No. 3:18-cv-02105, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.