CHICAGO (Legal Newsline) - Pretzels called "butter snaps" do not contain enough real butter to warrant that moniker, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
Plaintiff Karen Kowal filed the lawsuit through attorney Spencer Sheehan on Jan. 25 in Chicago federal court against Snyder's-Lance, the maker of Snyder's of Hanover snacks. The suit says consumers have valued butter since it was made "by nomadic tribes who carried cow's milk in their leather pouches which jostled during travel, producing a primitive version of this original dairy food."
But now, unscrupulous companies use synthetic ingredients to mimic real butter, Sheehan claims. He points at the inclusion of "enzyme-modified butterfat" on the butter snaps' ingredients list.
"These enzymes function as catalysts, accelerating chemical reactions by well over a million-fold, so that reactions that would take years in the absence of catalysis occur in fractions of seconds," the lawsuit says.
"These enzymes cause the butter to release volatile and non-volatile fatty acids to give consumers the impression a product contains more butter than it does by enhancing the butter taste."
Consumers are paying more for a product because they expect real butter, the suit says.