Full Circle Market Class Action Lawsuit Says Popcorn Boxes Are Underfilled

A California resident has filed a class action lawsuit against Topco Associates, saying the company’s Full Circle Market popcorn is underfilled.

Plaintiff Theresa Reisfelt says the packaging of Full Circle Market popcorn is intentionally misleading, giving the impression that there is more popcorn in the package than there really is.

Reisfelt explains that although the law allows for some empty space in a package, it does not allow for functionless empty space — in her opinion, the empty space in the Full Circle Market popcorn serves no function but to trick customers. Now, she has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all customers who were allegedly injured by the misleading packaging.

The plaintiff recounts that she purchased the Full Circle Market products on several occasions near her home in Orange County, California. She says she purchased the Organic Light Butter, Organic Butter, and Organic Salted popcorn products. Allegedly, after she heard about other litigation in California that had to do with the empty space in packaging, she realized the organic popcorn products were underfilled.

To explain the significance of this supposed empty space in the popcorn box, the Full Circle Market popcorn class action lawsuit states that both California and federal law regulate how much empty space, known as “slack fill” can be present in a given package. Both laws reportedly allow for slack fill if it performs a given function, or if the presence of some slack fill is unavoidable when the product is being manufactured.

However, the law prohibits non-functional slack fill, says Reisfelt. She notes the government has acknowledged that many customers rely on the size and shape of a package to determine how much product is inside it. This allegedly affected their purchasing decisions, because they are more likely to purchase an item that they believe has more of the product in it. This is reportedly one way that customers determine the value of the product, and decide whether or not it is worth spending their money on.

According to Reisfelt, the government has attempted to ensure that customers are not misled as they attempt to make decisions by regulating marketing and packaging of products. One way both federal and California law has attempted to protect consumers is prohibiting the incorporation of nonfunctional slack fill, because it commonly misleads consumers. Reisfelt stresses that nonfunctional slack fill is prohibited even if a package states the quantity or weight of the product on the label.

The Topco popcorn slack fill class action lawsuit asserts the Full Circle Market popcorn are 25% underfilled, and the empty space serves no purpose. There are allegedly three individually wrapped bags of popcorn in the box, although four could fit comfortably in it.

She explains the empty space does not protect the popcorn, because the three bags of popcorn gain no protection from there not being a fourth bag in the box. According to Reisfelt, the three bags of popcorn would have been more protected if there had been a fourth bag, because they would have had less room to move around during shipping and therefore less likely to be damaged.

Further emphasizing the idea that the empty space in the package is misleading, the Topco popcorn class action lawsuit explains Topco could have easily made the box smaller to fit only three popcorn bags. Allegedly, the company instead chose to actively mislead customers for its own financial gain.

Reisfelt explains that when she realized the popcorn box could have fit four packages of popcorn in it, she knew she had been financially injured. Allegedly, she and other customers believed they were purchasing an item that contained more organic popcorn in it than it actually did.

Reisfelt argues that she and other customers might not have purchased the product, or would not have paid as much for it, had they known the product only contained three bags of popcorn and not four.

Have you ever purchased a product only to discover that the packaging was underfilled? Share your experiences in the comments section below.

Theresa Resifelt is represented by Robert J. Stein and Anthony E. DiVincenzo of DiVincenzo Schoenfield Stein and Anthony Lanza and Ramin T. Montakab of Lanza & Smith PLC.

The Topco Full Circle Market Popcorn Slack Fill Class Action Lawsuit is Theresa Reisfelt v. Topco Associates LLC, et al., Case No. 8:20-cv-01283, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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