Nestle Purina, Consumers Reach Agreement in Beggin’ Strips Class Action

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A resolution has been reached in a class action lawsuit filed against Nestle Purina Petcare Co. that accused the company of deceiving consumers into believing that their Beggin’ dog treats are mostly made of real bacon.

Plaintiff Paul Kacocha and Nestle Purina have mutually agreed to dismiss the class action lawsuit, according to court documents filed in New York federal court on Tuesday.

Specifics of the resolution of the case were not disclosed. The one paragraph order simply indicated that both parties reached a permanent decision to dismiss the case.

Kacocha, a New York resident, accused Nestle Purina in July 2015, of falsely insinuating and representing that bacon is the main ingredient in the dog treat. According to Kacocha, it is rather 10th on the ingredient’s list.

His lawsuit contended that not only does the packaging of the treats mirror a depiction to bacon strips, but that the treats themselves are even “cut, shaped, colored and otherwise made to look and smell like real bacon.” The lawsuit also pointed out how television ad campaigns produced the illustration that could cause a consumer to believe that the dog treats are mostly made of real bacon.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas rejected a motion set by Nestle Purina to dismiss the case based on that very belief.

He had said that Purina’s Beggin’ dog treats illustrate to the average consumer that they are comprised of more bacon than otherwise represented. Karas had also noted that the treat’s name, “Beggin,” had also been fashioned to depict the “sound of ‘bacon’ when spoken.”

However, Judge Karas ended up dismissing “claims related to an online ingredient list that said the products included bacon, which they do,” according to Law360.

The U.S. District Judge also refrained from making bacon related jokes in the body of the opinion. Instead, he listed them all in a footnote.

Judge Karas wrote, “in an act of judicial restraint, the court declines to invoke in this opinion the phrase, ‘where’s the beef?,’ the expression ‘when pigs fly,’ or the works of seventeenth- century English jurist Sir Francis Bacon, although not for want of opportunity.”

Kacocha is represented by Jeffrey Carton of Denlea & Carton LLP.

The Nestle Purina Bacon Flavored Beggin’ Strips Class Action Lawsuit is Kacocha v. Nestle Purina Petcare Co., Case No. 7:15-cv-05489, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.