A hundred years ago, many people grew their own food, raised their own animals and cooked dinner at home. There were very few “prepared” foods of any kind, and even if you purchased products from a butcher, baker or grocer, you may have known them very well and your trust was at a personal level.
While today’s global marketplace provides a near-infinite number of goods, most consumers have no personal relationship with the manufacturer and any trust they have is based on advertising, and sadly, in today’s marketplace, advertising is designed to maximize product sales and allow the frequently international conglomerate to maximize their monetization of their product portfolio.
Most consumer have a positive reaction to products that are described as “all natural,” as it harkens back to a time when there was a real connection to the crops and animals we raised for our food.
But how do you ever really know if those products are not just one more food science experiment cooked up in a chemical plant laboratory in New Jersey?
You may have to sue, as the parties to a class action lawsuit involving so-called “all natural” foods from a grocery store in St. Clair County, Illinois have done. An out-of-state bakery is being sued for false advertising for using synthetic chemical in cookies marketed as all natural.
Sadly, these types of violations probably occur on a daily basis, as companies attempt to sell expensive, premium products to the consumer, yet are always attempting to cut corners and cost, and mislead them with suggestive advertising that is untrue, and in the most serious cases, could be dangerous.
Source: madisonrecord.com, “Another class action filed over false ‘all natural’ advertising,” June 17, 2015