Victory! A federal court has ruled in favor of consumer and environmental advocates claiming that Ben & Jerry’s is deceiving consumers about the quality of its products and treatment of dairy cows. Specifically, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia rejected Ben & Jerry’s motion to dismiss a consumer deception lawsuit filed last year by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), in collaboration with Regeneration Vermont, that alleges its claims of humanely sourced and environmentally responsible products are false and misleading.
This slam-dunk ruling against the Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry’s will, hopefully, force the ice cream corporation to either stop deceiving its consumers or, better yet, fully transition to regenerative organic farming practices that truly protect consumers, dairy cows and the environment.
“For far too long, Ben & Jerry’s has been saying one thing and doing another,” said Michael Colby, president of Regeneration Vermont. “And its failure to practice what it preaches is threatening the health of its consumers, the welfare of its cows, Vermont’s water quality, the treatment of migrant workers, and the economic well-being of its farmers. Enough!”
OCA’s director, Ronnie Cummins, provided this statement on the court’s ruling in its favor: “This is a victory for millions of consumers who have been deceived by Ben & Jerry’s marketing claims. We are pleased that the court believes that Ben & Jerry’s can be held accountable for the claims it makes about its products, and how the production of those products impacts animal welfare and the environment.”
The full motion to dismiss can be read here: MTD ruling.
Below are excerpts from the court’s ruling:
OCA alleges that Ben & Jerry’s labeling and marketing of its ice cream products ashumanely sourced and environmentally responsible are materially false and tend to mislead consumers in that the products contain ingredients sourced from inhumane dairy farms and traces of the herbicide glyphosate.
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The court concludes that the complaint alleges facts sufficient to advance a plausible claim that consumers would be misled by Ben & Jerry’s labeling and marketing regarding the sourcing of its ingredients.
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[T]he complaint alleges that fewer than 100% of Ben & Jerry’s partner farms are “Caring Dairies” even though content on Ben & Jerry’s website suggests that all farms supplying ingredients are in the program. Taken together with the complaint’s references to Ben & Jerry’s general messages about humane treatment of cows and “values-led sourcing,” the allegations concerning the misleading suggestions of full participation in the Caring Dairies program are sufficient to state a claim of misleading labeling and marketing, since a reasonable consumer could plausibly interpret Ben & Jerry’s labeling and marketing as affirmatively (and inaccurately) communicating that the company’s ice cream products are sourced exclusively from Caring Dairies and/or other humane sources.
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Ben & Jerry’s contends that…no reasonable consumer would view its environmental advocacy as a guarantee that its products contain no glyphosate, which it describes as a “ubiquitous herbicide.”
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The complaint thus plausibly alleges that a reasonable consumer would be misled into believing that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream products are free of glyphosate or that the company would disclose the presence of glyphosate on the label of any product that contained it.
