Last week, Monster Beverage filed an unusual lawsuit against the San Francisco City Attorney’s office to stop an attempt to place restrictions on the company’s highly caffeinated and potentially harmful products aimed at youth. This aggressive move is a form of backlash against using the legal system to hold the food and beverage industry’s accountable for deceptive marketing practices.
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Nation’s largest peddler of soda and junk food has the most at stake in ballot measure
Most people just think of soda when they hear the name “Pepsi.” But in fact, PepsiCo is the nation’s largest food company and second largest in the world. Its annual earnings top $60 billion, from a dizzying array of brands. Walk down almost any supermarket aisle (soda, snacks, cereal, juice) and you’re likely to bump into a PepsiCo-owned product.
In August, I reported on a lawsuit against ConAgra for deceptive labeling of its Wesson brand of cooking oils as "natural." The case alleges that the products contain genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), which are not by any stretch of the imagination, natural. A similar case was recently filed in California (by the same class action firm - Milberg) against Frito-Lay -- the snacks division of food and beverage giant PepsiCo.
These days, many companies–and especially food companies–are falling over each other to prove their green cred to consumers. But given the usual challenges of trying to save the planet while you’re destroying it, most efforts amount to a whole lot of greenwashing.
