Another wacky lawsuit: woman sues Kraft over amount of avocado in guacamole (1 Viewer)

[KurtEP]

I think that the FDA is more concerned with food safety and nutritional labeling than defining what's in tomato sauce, or guacamole, for that matter. Of course, something like tomato sauce should still contain tomatoes, correct? Now chocolate chip cookies is a far wider field. Are they oatmeal, do they look like a brownie? You'd have a far harder time making this kind of argument with these, unless, of course, they didn't have chocolate chips in them.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

I find it a tad amusing that some in this thread are defending what amount to fraud on the part of a corporation, in the form of misleading labeling. I know that everyone in this thread really agrees with me. How do I know this?

Replace "Kraft" with "Sony", "Dip" with "Ren & Stimpy", and "Guacamole" with "Uncut". The reaction is unanimous: Things should be labeled what they are. This is not some radical fringe concept. This is common sense.

When WB releases a mis-labeled Superman or Tom & Jerry DVD, no one suggests that it is the consumer's fault for not reading the fine print closely enough. We loudly complain and demand replacements, as well as a product recall that reconciles the label with the contents, and rightly so.

While I'm waiting for my replacement Superman DVD in the mail, I think I'll go visit Trader Joe's and pick up some avocado sauce that is (gasp!) more than two percent avocado.

 

[Chu Gai]

Not me Rob. It's a dip and the proportions of the various ingredients is largely consistent across the product line. Kind of like Pork & Beans. If I really want to get a handle of what proportion something is, I look at the list of ingredients. Also, I kind of doubt this woman is that egregiously wronged.

 

[MarkHastings]

But the difference here is that you think that Kraft is mislabeled. I don't think it is. According to the FDA, it isn't mislabeled.

Hopefully you see the difference between food products and electronics. With food products, there is a lot of interpretation as to what constitutes a particular food product. Considering shelf life, certain liberties must be taken when creating store bought items. Just as my example of cookies. Store bought cookies are anything but similar to what we make at home, yet they are allowed to call them "Cookies" - Why? Because we understand that certain liberties (in ingredients) must be taken to allow for shelf life. We (the consumer) also understand that "Store Bought Cookies" are not going to be the same as "Homemade Cookies".

Now I'm not saying that manufacturers should be allowed to do whatever they want - this Kraft issue is kind of in that grey area. Sure, real home made Guacamole is not the same as this Kraft DIP, but where is the line that we draw as far as what constitutes the difference between homemade and store bought?

All store bought products aren't going to represent homemade to some degree. The problem is in how much can they vary? That is up to the FDA to decide.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

I disagree in this case. "Guacamole" is a word with a specific meaning: avocado sauce. Look in any dictionary, any cookbook, any encyclopedia. The only entities who define guacamole differently are corporations exploiting the lax labeling requirements. How do you defend the ones that put a picture of an avocado on their packaging?

 

[Holadem]

There is a subtle yet important difference:

Onion, bacon & cheddar or gunpowder are not dips. When I open up a jar labelled "onion dip", I don't expect a mush paste of onion. I expect a dip that tastes like onion, regardless of how much onion may or may not be present in there.

Guacamole on the other hand, is a dip, in and of itself. It is a mush paste of avocadoes. I have no idea what they call a mush paste of something that tastes like Avocado, but that is most assuredly not "guacamole".

Onion = Flavor of dip
Guacamole = Type of dip. If it's only used as a flavor, it should be clearly marked as such.

See Imitation Crab Meat.

--
H

 

[Chu Gai]

If you look at the pictures, the labeling is consistent across all the product lines. It's in smaller print, off to the side. It doesn't confuse me and if I was, I'd read the list of ingredients.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I don't see why we need to have a government rule to secure labelling correctness. As an example, the FDA doesn't define whether or not you can use the "kosher" mark on your food products. If you use it, and the contents aren't actually kosher, major Jewish organisations will sue your pants off. That's the normal way the process works : private interests determine what products fall into what classes, and this lady's interest is clearly at least as private as Kraft's. In case you're interested, the civil courts are a forum specifically intended for reconciling disputes among private interests. In this case, the "I want my labelled-as-guacamole-food-product to resemble guacamole in some substantive way" interest won out over the "We need to label this so that people will associate it with a reasonably similar familar food" interest.

We don't need a FDA or USDA rule for everything.

 

[Holadem]

Sure, in the context of the line of product, it becomes clear to me as well that it's a flavor. But once again, I shouldn't need that context to know the true nature of the product.

If I saw that thing by itself, I would have read the ingredients, wanting to to know what else they added to the avocado. I would have expected a bunch of preservative, salt and such. It would have never occured to me that Avocado was a miscellanous ingredient.

--
H

 

[Chris Lockwood]

OK, you guys had me there for a minute... those of you who think this lawsuit has any merit at all are just playing an off-season April Fool's joke on us, right?

Because no rational person could claim that a $3 container of food, clearly labeled as to what the ingredients are, with a name that has no legal definition, that caused no harm or injury ... should be the basis of a lawsuit... right?

Because if people start thinking suits like that are valid, our society is in DEEP, DEEP trouble.

 

[nolesrule]

Well, the reason for major Jewish organizations suing your pants off is because all legitimate kashrut symbols are trademarks of the various kosher certifying organizations. To use one without permission is a trademark violation.

As for using a plain "K" as a kosher symbol, that is not regulated (you can't trademark a plain typeface letter of the alphabet) and in fact kosher organizations will tell people not to assume those products are kosher and to check them against official lists.


Anyway, I agree with the idea behind the lawsuit. However, I think that rather than a monetary penalty, it should just force the company to relabel, which seems to be what's happening.

Not every lawsuit is a bad one, and consumers shouldn't have to petition the FDA on this sort of thing. That's what the court room was actually designed for.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Here is a guacamole recipe from Kraft's own website. Three guesses as to what the main ingredient is. (Hint: it isn't partially hydrogenated coconut oil)

http://www.kraftfoods.com/main.aspx?...ecipe_id=54337



EDIT: Link isn't working, so here is the recipe (with my emphasis):

 

[Holadem]

Agreed. But of course the lawyers have smelled blood ($$$) so they're not gonna stop there.

--
H

 

[Chu Gai]

One thing is for certain, no matter what we all say, this thing will wind up in the courts. Like Holadem says, the lawyers smell money and so does that woman.

 

[MarkHastings]

But that does seem to contradict your stance. Why is ok for no expectation for "Onion Dip" to have a lot of onions? If it doesn't, then shouldn't it be labeled "Onion Flavored Dip"? If you're going to be strict about Guacamole being labeled "Flavored" then you should have that same expectation with the onion dip.

What I mean is, the product wasn't labeled Guacamole - hence, the expectation for it to follow such a recipe shouldn't be so severe. It was labeled as "Guacamole Dip" - Just as you have an expectation that onion dip is a dip that has the flavor of onion, so should guacamole dip have the same expectation that it's guacamole flavored dip.

For instance, Cherry Coke is artifically flavored. They say it in the ingredients, they don't have to label it as "Cherry Flavored Coke"

 

[MarkHastings]

Rob, did you notice that your recipe link is to "Guacamole" and not "Guacamole Dip". I think that's where all the confusion lies. Kraft is not saying that it is Guacamole. It's Guacamole Dip.

Does Kraft have a recipe for Guacamole Dip?

Also, remember my rant on store bought cookies? Any chocolate cookie recipe you see will not have the same ingredients that the store bought cookies have. Check out the bag of Tollhouse chips and look at the recipe. You will se that it is quite different than the ingredient listing on their store bought chocolate chip cookies.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

 

[Holadem]

You completely missed the point: Guacamole is a dip.

--
H

 

[MarkHastings]

So if their "Guacamole Dip" is half cream cheese / half guacamole - and considering their recipe for guacamole already has a bunch of cream cheese in it, it sounds like their idea of Guacamole dip is avocado flavored cream cheese?

 

[Scott_Sch]

You guys have to stop, I'm getting hungry reading all these recipes.

Anybody have some chips? Extra avocado in mine please.