Is It ‘Natural’? Consumers, and Lawyers, Want to Know
General Mills, which faced at least two federal lawsuits claiming
that its Nature Valley granola bars contained artificial ingredients, replaced labels that once read “100% Natural” to say they are “Made With 100% Natural Whole Grain Oats.”
Corporations, lawyers say, have been reluctant to allow a case to go to trial
and risk having a legal definition of “natural” emerge — which might set standards companies would have to meet.
In recent years, one bright spot in an otherwise lackluster market for packaged foods, beverages
and consumer products has been merchandise promoted as “natural.”
Consumers, increasingly wary of products that are overly processed or full of manufactured chemicals, are
paying premium prices for natural goods, from fruit juices and cereals to shampoos and baby wipes.
“We’re really getting into splitting hairs about what is natural
and what’s not,” said Maia Kats, the director of litigation for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a public advocacy group has been involved in a handful of lawsuits over so-called natural products.
A number of more recent cases involve allegations that products labeled natural were misleading
because they contained small amounts of materials linked to genetically modified organisms.
The new focus in litigation away from the ingredients in the food to the actual food chain — how the crop was grown or what the animals
were fed — may undermine the original goal of the lawsuits, which was addressing nutritional concerns, some experts say.