Misleading and Deceptive Product Labeling Attorneys
Consumers today are increasingly seeking to buy healthy products and to avoid artificial and harmful ingredients. This health-conscious trend has tempted some companies to use false or misleading labels to increase sales and to charge premium prices.
Deceptive labeling is especially widespread among food products, cosmetics, and personal care products. Consumers rely on product labels in choosing which products to buy and how much to pay for them. False or misleading labels can lead consumers to make purchasing decisions that they would not have made had they known the true facts.
As such, companies that mislead consumers in that manner need to be held accountable. Our class action lawyers at Broslavsky & Weinman represent individuals against businesses that unfairly profit from misleading or inaccurate labeling of their products. If you feel that you have been subjected to this type of false advertising, call us at (310) 575-2550 or contact us online to discuss your rights and potential claims.
Examples of Misleading Food and Personal Care Product Labels
Some of the more common types of false and misleading labeling include but are not limited to:
- Falsely labeling products that contain artificial ingredients as “natural” or having “no artificial ingredients”
- Misrepresenting the quality or quantity of ingredients in a product
- Falsely advertising products as “preservative free”
- Falsely advertising products as “organic”
- Overstating the amounts of nutrients or vitamins that a product contains
- Claiming false health benefits
- Mispresenting the geographic origin of a product
- Falsely advertising animal products as “raised without antibiotics”
False “Natural” Claims
One of the most common types of deceptive advertising of food and personal care products involves labeling products that have artificial or synthetic ingredients as “all natural”, “100% natural” or just “natural”. Unnatural ingredients that are often contained in products that are deceptively advertised in that way include chemicals, synthetics, preservatives, artificial additives, and artificial colors. Another variant of this type of false advertising is when a product label expressly says “no artificial ingredients”, “no artificial flavors”, or “all natural ingredients”, when in reality the product does in fact contain ingredients that are not natural.
Mislabeled Food Products – Missing Ingredients
Companies frequently have various tasty and high-quality food ingredients as part of product names, for example “hazelnut coffee” or “strawberry shortcake”. Because these ingredients generally tend to be expensive however, instead of actually using the advertised products companies often replace them with various chemical concoctions designed to mimic the taste of the ingredients in question.
A variation of this type of misrepresentations is falsely advertising a product as “Made with Real____” where the advertised natural ingredient (such as nuts or fruits) is replaced with blends and compounds created in a lab. The various concoctions used in place of advertised ingredients are invariably less nutritious and do not contain the health benefits that the real ingredients do.
Deceptive Health-Related Claims
Another common type of mislabeling is deceptively advertising products as containing health benefits that they do not have and/or misleading consumers as to the quantity of unhealthy ingredients in a product. An example of this deceptive advertising would be companies misstating the true amount of sugar or trans-fat, misleadingly minimizing the quantity of sugar in high-sugar products by using language as such as “lightly sweetened”, or advertising products as having health benefits that are incompatible with the actual product ingredients.
Another example is expressly or implicitly advertising certain products as superior and healthier alternatives to other products when such claims are unsupported by true facts, such as calling fructose an excellent substitute for sugar, or advertising coconut oil as superior to other cooking oils.
Contact Our Class Action Lawyers
The advertisements described above are only some examples of mislabeling and deceptive marketing that may violate state false advertising and consumer protection laws. If you suspect that you purchased a product that is inaccurately or deceptively labeled, contact our mislabeled products attorneys at Broslavsky & Weinman, LLP to discuss your potential case. Call us at (310) 575-2550 or email us using the contact form on this page for a prompt response.
