Food & Beverage Litigation & Regulatory Update

Category: Issue 667

  • Advocacy Groups Sue USDA For OLPP Withdrawal

    The Center for Environmental Health, the Center for Food Safety, Cultivate Oregon, and the International Center for Technology Assessment have filed a complaint for declaratory and equitable relief against Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, alleging that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) withdrawal of the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule (OLPP) violated both the Organic…

  • Jury Awards Plaintiff in Mondelez Age Discrimination Case

    A jury in Pennsylvania federal court has awarded $200,000 to a former Mondelez employee who alleged the company discriminated against her because of her age and terminated her after she complained of the alleged discrimination. Konsavage v. Mondelez Global LLC, No. 15-1155 (M.D. Pa., verdict issued March 19, 2018). The plaintiff, who worked for Nabisco…

  • “Super Herb” Beverage Maker Facing Putative Class Action Complaint

    Rebbl Inc. faces a putative class action alleging its “super herb” beverages are falsely advertised and labeled because the claims made for their ingredients are “not supported by sound scientific evidence.” Richburg v. Rebbl Inc., No. 18-1674 (E.D.N.Y., filed March 16, 2018). The complaint alleges that beverages in Rebbl’s product line of “Elixirs” and “Proteins”…

  • “Joy of Cooking” Authors Question Brian Wansink Study

    Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, is facing criticism from a couple that owns the rights to “The Joy of Cooking,” which Wansink asserted had increased calorie counts of its recipes by an average of 44 percent since its first publication in 1936. The New Yorker reports that John…

  • Washington Bans PFAs in Food Packaging

    Washington Governor Jay Inslee has signed into law the Healthy Food Packaging Act (H.B. 2658/S.B. 6396), making the state the first in the country to ban perfluorinated chemicals (PFAs) in food packaging. If the Washington’s Department of Ecology identifies safer alternatives to PFAs by January 1, 2020, the law will ban PFAs in paper food…

  • NAFTA Talks Include Food Labeling

    During negotiations for updates to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trump administration is reportedly seeking to stop the enactment of laws mandating food labels that warn of high levels of sugar, salt and fat. Officials in Mexico and Canada are reportedly considering regulatory actions similar to those in Chile, which approved requirements for…

  • Public Meeting Scheduled for Codex Session on Analysis and Sampling Methods

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will sponsor a public meeting April 6, 2018, in Washington, D.C., to provide information and receive public comment on U.S. draft positions for the Codex Committee on Methods of Analysis and Sampling meeting to be held in Budapest, Hungary, May 7-11,…

  • Childhood Obesity is Rising, According to Study

    Researchers have released a study concluding that rates of childhood obesity are rising rather than declining or stabilizing as previously reported. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers reportedly found that although the prevalence of obesity has increased across all childhood age groups since 1999, “significant increases in obesity and severe obesity”…