SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - Molly Brown and Adina Ringler filed a federal class action lawsuit on Dec. 29 in the Northern District of California against Food for Life Baking Co., Inc. For violation of the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act; false advertising; fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation; unfair business practices and unjust enrichment.
According to the complaint, Food For Life Baking labels some of its food products as providing specific amounts of protein per serving depending on the product, such as “7g plant-based protein per serving.” Brown and Ringler claim that this cannot be true because the FDA recognizes that not all proteins are the same in their ability to meet human nutritional requirements.
The products do not meet the FDA's required method for measuring protein quality and its digestibility, the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score, the suit says.
A .5 PDCAAS means only half the protein in a product is available to support human protein needs so if said product contained 10 grams total protein per serving, the corrected amount of protein would be 5 grams per serving, the suit says.
Brown and Ringler state the defendant’s protein claim is in the form of a quantitative amount appearing alone, without any information about protein quality makes it false. A claim of 7g protein per serving would only be 3.5g of protein usable by the human body, the suit claims.
Furthermore, Brown and Ringler state that consumers would not buy this product if not for the false and misleading representation of the product labeling willfully and intentionally done by the defendant.
Brown and Ringler are represented by Seth Safier of Gutride Safier LLP.
Northern California District Court case number 3:21-cv-10054-SK