By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – A new lawsuit accuses Conagra Brands of misleading consumers by “short weighting” its Ms. Paul and Van de Kamp frozen fish products and falsely claiming they were “100 percent.” whole fish.
In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Chicago, three consumers said Conagra artificially increased the weight of 10 fish stick and fish fillet products by adding water and sodium tripolyphosphate, ” which can then ooze as a white paste” once cooked.
Consumers said sodium tripolyphosphate, a compound used commercially including in detergents, increases weight by 13 percent on average, forcing them and others to overpay.
“A reasonable consumer has no reason to check what a product is made of when the product labeling contains numerous indications that it is ‘100% whole fish’, healthy and wild-caught,” the complaint states.
The United States Food and Drug Administration considers sodium tripolyphosphate to be safe. Tuesday’s complaint calls it a suspected neurotoxin, a registered pesticide and a known air contaminant in large quantities, without providing any basis for the claims.
Chicago-based Conagra declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday, saying it does not discuss ongoing litigation. Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The plaintiffs are William Martin of California, Catherine Foster of Massachusetts and Cindy Pappert of New York.
They seek unspecified damages for nationwide buyers of Ms. Paul and Van de Kamp’s 10 fish products over the past four years, citing violations of California’s consumer production laws, of Massachusetts and New York.
Conagra faces other disputes over its fish.
In March, a federal judge in Chicago refused to dismiss a lawsuit, saying it misled consumers into believing that nine Ms. Paul and Van de Kamp products were sustainably sourced, including by calling them “good for the environment”.
The case is Pappert et al v. Conagra Brands Inc, United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 24-04835.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Bill Berkrot)
