Knorr Pasta Sides Class Action Says Packages are Nearly Half Empty

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A class action lawsuit against Unilever United States Inc. claims that the company’s Knorr Pasta Sides contain 40 percent nonfunctional slack-fill.

Plaintiff Kaveh Fasih says he purchased an Alfredo Knorr pasta side in January 2018, in San Diego, Calif.

Fasih alleges that he was deceived by the packaging of the product because of the large amount of empty space representing nonfunctional slack-fill.

The Knorr Pasta Sides class action lawsuit says the empty space in the packaging functions only to trick consumers into thinking that they are receiving more product than they are.

Fasih claims that had he known that the package contained so much nonfunctional slack-fill, he would not have purchased the product, or would not have paid as much as he did for it.

The Knorr Pasta Sides class action lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff was financially injured by the company’s alleged deception, and many other consumers were similarly injured. Fasih seeks damages on behalf of himself and all other similarly affected California consumers.

According to the Knorr Pasta Sides slack-fill class action lawsuit, most consumers rely heavily on the size of a product’s packaging when making purchasing decisions.

The plaintiff notes that many consumers will purchase product in a bigger package because they believe it provides them with more product, in an attempt to get the best possible value.

Allegedly, consumers often take package size into consideration more than labeling and weight of a product when making a purchasing decision, making package size an important part of a product’s marketing and advertising.

The Knorr pasta deceptive packaging class action lawsuit states that Unilever knew of this consumer trend, and actively packaged the pasta in a deceptively large package to encourage more consumers to buy it than would have bought it had the package been smaller.

Additionally, the Knorr pasta packaging class action lawsuit claims that reasonable consumers are deceived by the packaging, because it is opaque, prohibiting a consumer from seeing how much product is inside the packaging.

Thus, the Unilever product packaging class action lawsuit claims that the company unjustly enriched itself from this action and participated in false and misleading advertising.

Fasih says the empty space in the Alfredo Knorr Pasta Sides serves no functional purpose other than to mislead consumers, and is therefore nonfunctional slack-fill. California’s Fair Packaging and Labeling Act does allow for packages to contain empty space, or slack-fill, if the empty space serves a purpose.

Some of these purposes include:

• To protect the contents of the package
• If a machine used to close the package requires a certain amount of packaging material to close to package
• Unavoidable product settling during shipping and handling
• If the package adds value to the product or serves another discernible purpose

According the Fasih, the empty space in the Knorr Pasta Sides, 40 percent of the bag’s capacity, fills none of these requirements, and is thus nonfunctional slack-fill, which is prohibited by California law.

Kaveh Fasih is represented by Scott J. Ferrell of Pacific Trial Attorneys.

The Knorr Pasta Side Nonfunctional Slack-Fill Class Action Lawsuit is Kaveh Fasih v. Unilever United States Inc., et al., Case No. 3:18-cv-01032-BEN-BLM, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.