- Activist nonprofits with big endowments using litigation to go after soft drink companies. Loser-pays would help [Tiger Joyce, Inside Sources, see also]
- “Cigar City” a familiar monicker for Tampa. Likelihood of confusion between a beer and a salsa brand? [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
- USDA checkoff programs, which require farmers and ranchers to participate in group marketing, suffer setback in Montana federal courtroom [Baylen Linnekin, Reason; Joe Fassler/New Food Economy on First Amendment challenge]
- C. Jarrett Dieterle reports from craft brewers conference [Inside Sources] More profiles of Flying Dog CEO Jim Caruso [Reason, The American Conservative; earlier here and here] The great German (regulated) beer stagnation [Esme Nicholson, NPR, 2016]
- Class action: consumer fraud to call dried/powdered vegetable ingredients “veggies”? [Lisa Fickenscher, New York Post] Entrepreneurial lawyers fatten on slack-fill cases [Candy Industry] If only buyers holding a sandwich had a way of judging its weight other than package size [Jake Offenhartz, Gothamist on suit against Pret-a-Manger]
- “The real opposition to food trucks was not coming from restaurants but from commercial real estate interests” [Aaron Renn, Urbanophile]
Filed under: agriculture and farming, beer and brewers, restaurants, soft drinks
3 Comments
I mean, it’s hard to sincerely argue that the Pret-a-Manger packaging isn’t deceptive, and I’m unaware of any practical reason for this packaging design, such as slack fill in chip bags to prevent the chips from being crushed.
Last time I checked those candy boxes listed their contents by weight not volume. Why are these lawsuits allowed to proceed? As long as the weight of the product meets or exceeds the weight listed on the packaging there is no issue.
To jmc — because weight is not the primary way consumers evaluate how much they are going to get out of boxed or bagged candy and snacks. How many gummy bears is 5 oz. of gummy bears? I have no idea. What volume of gummy bears are you going to get by buying the box in your hand? Now I have some idea. I open the box and 1/2 of it is air.
That’s deceptive regardless of the “ounce” notation.