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

[Chu Gai]

This is nothing more than what Carlos Mencia said happens when both of your parents are 'Dees'.

 

[Bill_Weinreich]

Sad to say it happened to me too. I wanted guacamole for tacos and ended up purchasing guacamole dip. After I tasted I realized the "I" had purchased the wrong product. Tossed that and went back and bought guacamole. No lawyer intervention necessary.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Life's little annoyances... But through the magic of the class action suit, these annoyances add up.

My copy of Joy of Cooking says that pizzas, by government regulation, must be topped with a tomato based sauce, despite the prevalence of non-tomato based pizzas in... Italy. I suspect that such regulations were designed to protect the consumer against the unscrupulous, and not to stifle creativity

Kraft is being unscrupulous, though a regulation that does more than specify a minimum avocado content might well do more harm than good.

 

[KurtEP]

Imagine the lawsuit you could get from this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061204/..._st/china_lard

 

[Chu Gai]

What's next? Fake rhino horn powder?

 

[Steve_Pannell]

Let's just hope Kraft doesn't get its "other ingredients" from China!

 

[PhillJones]

My wife is from Texas and she, and all her friends and family make Guacamole with avocadoes and sour cream. It's not just avocadoes. So I think the recipe for guacamole is a bit debateable anyway.

The point is though is that a reasonable consumer knows full well that something or other dip, contains that something but isn't really authentic. EG sour cream and chives dip isn't just sour cream and chives and probably only vaguely tastes like it. If it has the word flavoured in the title that it doesn't even have any of the ingredient in it. This seems to be the convention on the supermarket shelves and everybody I know understands this.

Kraft relabelling the tub is a goodwill gesture, not an admission of guilt. The most that should have happened in this case as that she writes a letter to kraft, kraft says that they're sorry that she didn't like their dip and gives her her $3 back out of the goodness of their hearts. Kraft could then ask a bunch of other consumers if they found the package confusing and change it if they do.

All Kraft want to do is sell tasty dipping treats, they're not out to hurt anybody and accussing them of fraud over this is laughable.

 

[KurtEP]

I'd agree that fraud is a strong word, but it clearly means different things to different people.

Keep in mind that all Kraft really wants to do is make a profit. While I suppose we could debate corporate governance for large entities such as this, it's probably a reasonable assumption in most cases.

I doubt any reasonably sized business, much less a multi national like Kraft, would change the name of a widely distributed product as a goodwill gesture to one person. You are pretty much correct that a normal goodwill gesture would be a gift certificate or coupon. Going beyond that tells me that they have at least some concern that they wouldn't prevail in court. I'm sure that Kraft has both internal and external counsel that keep them appraised of the merits of suits like this, so it's not like they'd be doing it blindly, either.

 

[Chu Gai]

It's nothing more than a PR move. If Kraft loses, and that remains to be seen, so what? It'll be a settlement that involves something like coupons for Kraft products (like Kraft doesn't do so already), the legal firm makes out like bandits, the woman whose been mentioned gets money under the table, terms might not be discussed, there'll be no admission of guilt, and so what? People will still clamor for disclosures on labels and not read them. Only two parties really make out on this and it's not the consumer.
Now about Ward Churchill claiming he's an Indian....

 

[Eric_L]

You say that like it is a bad thing. Isn't that pretty much the fact for everyone? I for one would not go to work and perform my duty if I were not paid. Would you?

 

[KurtEP]

I don't think it's a bad thing, but you have to be careful with the profit motive. As the Chinese lard article shows, some people will throw all other ethical considerations out the window to make a profit.

Also, for the record, I wouldn't do most of the jobs I've done without pay, but I can think of a few that I might, if I had no need for the income.

 

[MarkHastings]

In cases of not abiding by FDA standards, I agree that we need to make sure these manufacturers don't put out something that can potentially be harmful, but I still keep thinking about this womans law suit. Just the thought of going through ALL that effort to sue Kraft over a freakin' $2 tub of dip. :rolleyes

She HAS to be one of those greedy bastards who wants to profit off anything they can get their hands on...Unless she really is just that mad, but if you are really so mad as to justify all of the crap needed to go through to file a lawsuit, then I still have to say "Chill out dude or you're going to get an aneurism!!!" Like I said before, be mad, but throw the dip out and drop it.

Hell, I had a burger at a local restaurant that had a giant shard of metal in it. I informed the owner and he appologized and said I could get a free lunch. Not only did I not sue, but I passed on the free lunch.

 

[JeremyErwin]

And all the spammers want to do is make a small profit by pumping and dumping penny stocks.

 

[MarkHastings]

But it sounds a lot like the "husband defense". When your wife accuses you of something bad, sometimes it's easier to just say "Yes Dear" than to fight it (even though you didn't do anything wrong).

Kraft knows they didn't do anything wrong, but it's easier for them to change the label than to stick to their guns. That's just good business. Often you have to bend over and let the customer be right no matter how wrong they are.

It's the old:
Rule #1: The customer is always right
Rule #2: If the customer is ever wrong, see rule #1

 

[Seth=L]

Ha, your not fooling me.

You don't even like Chef Boyardee.

I have got a can for $20 if you want it though.

 

[MarkHastings]

I never said I didn't like it - the question (in the other thread) was hypothetical. I eat canned macaroni, but I'll be damned if I think to myself that I'm getting a gourmet Italian meal. Why the hell would I even COMPARE it to real Italian food???? Why would anyone have any cause to be in shock that it's not the same?

I mean, how stupid is it for someone to say "Oh man! This Chef Boyardee is bad, it's NOTHING like what my Italian mom makes!!!"

 

[Ken Chan]

Well of course they won't admit anything if there's a suit pending. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of the higher-ups don't regret this.

Here's a question: why do they add yellow and blue dyes to make it green? If the idea is open honesty, "all the ingredients are listed", why bother? (I wonder what color "a whipped paste made from partially hydrogenated soybean and coconut oils, corn syrup, whey and food starch" is by default.) You could have the "essence" of guacamole, without the -- I dunno -- guilt?

Do you suppose it's because if it wasn't green, people might suspect there's barely any avocado? Is it because "people expect guacamole to be green"? If so, I have a better one: "people expect guacamole to be made of avocado"!

 

[MarkHastings]

The same reason they inject oranges with orange coloring.

Ken, again, I am talking about the FDA standards here. Kraft has done nothing wrong according to those standards. I don't care what it's supposed to be, but rather what it legally can be. Legally, it's considered Guacamole...just as legally Chef Boyardee can sell what they consider "Italian Food".

Obviously the standards need to be changed to not allow such a variation, but until those standards are set in place, they are still abiding by the standards.

I'm sure Kraft knew that they were 'getting away' with something, but you can't sue someone for 'getting away' with something when it's not really illegal, due to the FDA standards. The FDA is what constitues fraud in the Food realm....so they should change their standards...

I'm sure Kraft is changing the label because this lax FDA standard is almost like a 'loophole' in the system. Should they be penalized for that? I don't agree. Should they be made to change their practices according to new standards that should be set in place. They probably should.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Mark,

In post #28 of this thread, I linked to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the law from which the FDA derives its powers. Up at the top of the specific page I linked to, you can see that it is prohibited to sell food that is "misbranded". The FD&C Act does not define "misbranded" in its definitions section, but dictionary.com defines misbranded as "misleadingly or fraudulently labeled." In other words, the lack of specific guidelines for guacamole (similar to the 90% peanut requirement for peanut butter) does not mean the Kraft guacamole was not misleadingly labeled and therefore in violation of the law. Besides, the lawsuit was filed in California, and I believe the state laws are stricter than the federal ones.

 

[KurtEP]

Actually, in the long term, if you're a multi national corporation, it often pays to stick to your guns. If you have a reputation for fighting off frivolous suits, fewer of them get filed. Of course, if the suit has merit, you're not going to get anywhere with that tactic.