Smucker sued over '100 percent' fruit label

[Vic]

Originally posted by: JohnnyMcJohnnyJohn
If they're having to put sugar into this stuff then to me it's not 100% fruit. They obviously know how to make jam, and the onviously know that they aren't simply crushing fruit and throwing it in a jar so to claim 100% fruit is deliberately misleading. I say this because they know most people don't know two sh1ts about making jam and they could be swayed into thinking that there is in fact nothing but fruit in the jar. Most people like the idea of natural food product so that is an obious selling point, and Smuckers exploited that angle. Perhaps instead of claiming "100% fruit" they could offer "frutiier than your cross dressing uncle" or something to that effect?

Pardon me, but you're an idiot. I don't give "two sh1ts" about people who don't know that making jam requires sugar or what their arrogant ignorance could lead them into thinking.
Smuckers is 100% fruit because they actually use real fruit when making their jam. Others use concentrate. Their jam is the best mass-produced out there bar none, almost as good as homemade or those small specialty-made jams that cost a lot more.
This is stupid. If you don't like a product, don't buy it. Please. Sueing under the false pretenses of "consumer protection" is total bullsh!t. Consumers won't make any money off this. Crooked lawyers will. And yet another good decent company that actually sold a high quality product will be raped.

edit: shouldn't we be able to sue the lawyers for the deceptive claims of consumer protection?

 

[chess9]

Vic:

Uh, you are missing the point. First of all, let's see if we can agree on some ground rules here.

1. Will you agree that advertising should be truthful?
2. Will you agree that if you placed an order for fried apples and were given fried fruit juice you wouldn't be happy?
3. Will you agree that screaming 100% fruit on the label in 18 point and listing the ingredients showing considerably less than 100% fruit in 6 point is, at least, deceptive?
4. Will you agree that sugar, pectin, and fruit juice are not fruit?

If you agree to the above, then why shouldn't a large company be required to advertise its products honestly? I'm assuming you didn't care for Clinton's hemming and hawing over definitions about what constituted sex, so why would you be more tolerant here?

Frankly, I eat Smuckers low fat peanut butter even though it is loaded with sugar. Their products are very good and can stand on their own WITHOUT THE LIES. Yes, I read the labels, but no one should be so blatantly trying to defraud the public. (However, I doubt the woman in Cali was defrauded but rather recruited to be the lead plaintiff. Lawyers do that all the time and it is really the worst part of this whole matter from my perspective.)

I will say, those who are bashing the lawyers certainly have their hearts in the right place. ,

-Robert

 

[PatboyX]

anyone got a pic of the label?

 

[Gaard]

Originally posted by: rjain

Originally posted by: Gaard

Originally posted by: rjain

Originally posted by: Gaard

Just because they're made from fruit doesn't make them 100% fruit. And if the ingredients for the jam aren't 100% fruit, how can the jam itself be 100% fruit?

Then applesauce can never be 100% fruit because it doesn't have the apple seeds.

That doesn't make any sense. Just because the whole fruit isn't being used doesn't make it less than 100% fruit. The fact that other ingredients besides fruit are being used does make it less than 100% fruit.

Is fruit pectin not part of a fruit?
Is fruit juice not part of a fruit?

Don't know about the pectin and juice thing. I buy apple juice all the time and there's many ingredients listed that aren't fruit.

Oh yeah, you could at least say "Oh yeah, you're right" for correcting your applesauce theory.

 

[Vic]

Robert:

1. Yes.
2. Of course but I don't see the connection in this case. People buying jam are getting jam.
3. No.
4. No. Fruit juice and pectin are made from fruit and, along with sugar, are a necessary requirement for making jams.

Smuckers strawberry jam webpage with nutrition facts and ingredients panel


edit: oh, I hate to answer this because it might be inflammatory off-topic, but I didn't care about Clinton's sex life, and the big deal made about it annoyed me (as I felt it was a distraction from real issues). Better presidents than him had mistresses right in the White House and the public didn't care (FDR for example). As for Clinton's hemming and hawing, that was all lawyer garbage that the media exploited upon an ignorant public. Clinton's lawyers cut a deal with Starr's team that oral sex did not constitute "sex" for the purposes of Clinton's deposition (this is how lawyers work, people). Starr discovered that he been hoodwinked, reneged on the deal, and tried to prosecute for perjury (which he could not do because technically Clinton did not perjure -- once again, that is how lawyers work, people -- they operate under deals, negotiations, and other fantasies that have nothing to do with reality).

 

[chess9]

Vic:

So if you order apples and get pectin you're happy? Seems an odd position to me. If I order apples and get apple juice, I wouldn't be happy.... Ditto for sugar. This seems pretty simple to me. Smuckers is relying upon the sloppy customer who will look only at the front of the label. Unfortunately, manufacturers are pulling these stunts with many, many products. I'm sure you've been hosed many times. I know I have!

But, since you object to private lawyers suing over this mislabelling, then you are ok if the Federal Trade Commission decrees that such labelling is illegal? In other words, wouldn't you prefer less government instead of more? Lawyers suing is just private enterprise at work. Furthermore, isn't this just one more example of democracy at work? Californians want elections every 6 months, apparently, and some people want truth in advertising. Some want both! ,

I'll take the clumsy forms of democracy to a benign dictatorship any day.... Now, if only those dumb Iraqis would get the message.....

-Robert

 

[rjain]

Originally posted by: Gaard

Don't know about the pectin and juice thing. I buy apple juice all the time and there's many ingredients listed that aren't fruit.

Then that's not apple juice. That's apple juice with other crap in it. If you go an squeeze the juice out of an apple, by your criteria on Smuckers, it wouldn't be 100% fruit.

Oh yeah, you could at least say "Oh yeah, you're right" for correcting your applesauce theory.

"Correcting"? You contradicted yourself on that one. You said that Smuckers isn't 100% fruit because they don't use the whole fruit and then you said that applesauce is 100% fruit because it doesn't need to use the whole fruit.

 

[rjain]

Originally posted by: chess9
Vic:

So if you order apples and get pectin you're happy? Seems an odd position to me. If I order apples and get apple juice, I wouldn't be happy.... Ditto for sugar.

If you order jam and get fresh fruit would you be happy?
If you order something that's 100% fruit and it has grape and apple in it would you be unhappy? If so, are you unhappy because you didn't get 100% fruit or because you didn't get pure apples? The product never said it was 100% apples.

 

[chess9]

The difference here is you are trying to define sugar, pectin and juice as "fruit". I'm afraid that won't wash. Pectin, for instance, is a common polysaccaride found in fruits and vegetables, but it isn't defined by ANYONE, except a few here, as fruit. If you ask for a live girl and get a dead boy with the excuse "Well, they're both composed of electrons, neutrons, protons, an odd neutrino or two, etc..." is that acceptable? Not on most Friday nights!!!

Sheezy, I hope you guys know a 40 pin cable from a socket 487....

Furthermore, I'm quite surprised that anyone thinks Smuckers isn't at fault. They are obviously playing the angles and got burned for it. By next year check out their labels. Just a hunch going here, but I suspect you'll see a different approach. ,

-Robert

 

[Mark R]

Just because a food product contains '100%' of an ingredient, does not necessarily mean that it made purely from that one ingredient.

For example, take processed meat e.g. corned beef - this is advertised on the packaging as 'minimum 100% beef', yet the list of ingredients is fairly extensive - in fact, further restricitions mean that you can't call a food 'corned beef' unless it contains a minimum of 120% beef.

How is this possible? Well, it all boils down to how foods are measured. The 100% beef claim applies to the weight of the raw meat as compared to the weight of the final product. Since the meat will lose water during cooking, it is quite possible that 1 lb of meat will yield only 3/4 lb of final product. This is an industry standard method of measuring the content of foods, and is used on virtually all products.

Taking the argument further, it would be quite possible to have a jam which was '100% strawberries'.

 

[rjain]

Originally posted by: chess9
The difference here is you are trying to define sugar, pectin and juice as "fruit". I'm afraid that won't wash. Pectin, for instance, is a common polysaccaride found in fruits and vegetables, but it isn't defined by ANYONE, except a few here, as fruit.

So why is one part of a fruit fruit and another part of the fruit not fruit? What makes apple flesh 100% fruit but apple pectin not 100% fruit? Is the apple skin 100% fruit? The rest of the 100% fruit is 100% fruit. Is pure squeezed apple juice 100% juice? Don't confuse "purely from one type of source" with "the entirety of one type of source". Should their jams include pesticides, too, since those were on the fruit when it was picked? The pesticide would wash off, but would the lack of it wash?

In short, if something is 100% fruit, how could part of it not be 100% fruit? Before it was claimed that something that is made from 100% fruit and other stuff isn't 100% fruit. In order to be 100% fruit, all the parts have to be 100% fruit. If the whole apple is 100% fruit, then any part of it is 100% fruit.

If you ask for a live girl and get a dead boy with the excuse "Well, they're both composed of electrons, neutrons, protons, an odd neutrino or two, etc..." is that acceptable? Not on most Friday nights!!!

We asked for 100% fruit and got parts of fruit. Do you really want apple seeds in your jam?

Furthermore, I'm quite surprised that anyone thinks Smuckers isn't at fault. They are obviously playing the angles and got burned for it. By next year check out their labels. Just a hunch going here, but I suspect you'll see a different approach. ,

Smucker's is at as much fault as the person who claims that their applesauce is 100% fruit. I wanted seeds in my applesauce, damn it.

 

[rjain]

Originally posted by: Mark R
The 100% beef claim applies to the weight of the raw meat as compared to the weight of the final product.

Interesting. I didn't know that. But that doesn't even need to be used here, since the claim was 100% fruit. They didn't say which fruit(s) they were using. Of course, the main flavor is that of the fruit they are advertising in the product's name.

 

[JohnnyMcJohnnyJohn]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: JohnnyMcJohnnyJohn
If they're having to put sugar into this stuff then to me it's not 100% fruit. They obviously know how to make jam, and the onviously know that they aren't simply crushing fruit and throwing it in a jar so to claim 100% fruit is deliberately misleading. I say this because they know most people don't know two sh1ts about making jam and they could be swayed into thinking that there is in fact nothing but fruit in the jar. Most people like the idea of natural food product so that is an obious selling point, and Smuckers exploited that angle. Perhaps instead of claiming "100% fruit" they could offer "frutiier than your cross dressing uncle" or something to that effect?

Pardon me, but you're an idiot. I don't give "two sh1ts" about people who don't know that making jam requires sugar or what their arrogant ignorance could lead them into thinking.
Smuckers is 100% fruit because they actually use real fruit when making their jam. Others use concentrate. Their jam is the best mass-produced out there bar none, almost as good as homemade or those small specialty-made jams that cost a lot more.
This is stupid. If you don't like a product, don't buy it. Please. Sueing under the false pretenses of "consumer protection" is total bullsh!t. Consumers won't make any money off this. Crooked lawyers will. And yet another good decent company that actually sold a high quality product will be raped.

edit: shouldn't we be able to sue the lawyers for the deceptive claims of consumer protection?

**Note to self: Never question the contents of a Smuckers jar around Vic as he might have an annurism. [b/]

Save the insults for a less rediculous topic, Vic

 

[rjain]

JohnnyMcJohnnyJohn: Just because you haven't evaluated the issue doesn't mean that the issue is ridiculous. Please, come up with a consistent reason that can be stated as a law that one extract from a fruit is still fruit but another isn't. Otherwise, we'll have to call applesauce made 100% from apples and nothing else to not be 100% fruit.

 

[JohnnyMcJohnnyJohn]

Rjain, I'm letting the issue continue because as you pointed out sugar is naturally found in fruit. Kind of silly, didn't think about it. But, regardless, my previous post was specifically in regard to the way Vic tried to make his point. I'd like to think P&N can at least have a conversation about Stawberry Jam without calling eachother names

 

[Vic]

LOL! Point taken.

But to me, this has very little to do with strawberry jam (although a VERY important topic itself around the breakfast table ) or about Smuckers. What it does mean to me is the very important topic of frivilous lawsuits and the destruction of America through litigation (particularly the "litigation tax" or the rising price of goods to pay the parasitic lawyers). For the most part, these lawyers produce nothing and contribute nothing. But they are stealing and raping from those who do. Case in point: Smuckers, a century-plus-old corporation that puts food on tables and gives people jobs -- an invaluable contribution to the economy and society at large. And what do they get for making arguably one of the best jams out there?
And where is all the misplaced anger? Not on the lawyers, who neither spin nor sow yet rake millions (if not billions) off the American economy through their falsely-advertised "consumer protection" litigations, but on the companies who feed and clothe us, and build us houses and cars, and provide jobs.
And to me, that really is something to get angry about.

But hey, they deserve to go down for saying their jam was "100% fruit" right? Those lawyers are doing us a favor, right? I mean, how DARE they make jam with pectin and sugar, those crooks?

sigh....

 

[Zebo]

This thread is halarious. Who cares if they put dog doo in there it did'nt hurt her.. Some of you guys crack me up acting as if she deserves damages for a "sensitive palate" gimme a break.. Keep things in persective here folks

 

[Tom]

100% frivolous.

 

[Gaard]

Originally posted by: rjain

Originally posted by: Gaard

Don't know about the pectin and juice thing. I buy apple juice all the time and there's many ingredients listed that aren't fruit.

Then that's not apple juice. That's apple juice with other crap in it. If you go an squeeze the juice out of an apple, by your criteria on Smuckers, it wouldn't be 100% fruit.

Oh yeah, you could at least say "Oh yeah, you're right" for correcting your applesauce theory.

"Correcting"? You contradicted yourself on that one. You said that Smuckers isn't 100% fruit because they don't use the whole fruit and then you said that applesauce is 100% fruit because it doesn't need to use the whole fruit.

You're wrong on both counts. In fact, if you can point out where I said anything that you say I said, I'll lie down on my back and bark like a dog and let you take pictures. But if you can't, you have to do the same. Deal?

 

[charrison]

So if you mad jam out of 100% fruit, would it still be jam?

 

[Zebo]

I buy apple juice all the time and there's many ingredients listed that aren't fruit.

Gaard try Martinellis... It kosher 100% pasturized apple juice. Once you try it you won't be able to drink sugar water again.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: PainTrain

Originally posted by: Vic
What a freakin' joke! :|

I dare anyone to make strawberry jam with 100% strawberries. It can't be done.

Then I guess the company shouldn't have claimed it did

It didnt claim 100% strawberries, it claimed 100% fruit, which it lives up to that claim. Misleading? Maybe. Illegal? Dont think so.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: BDawg

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: BDawg
I think the suit is fine. I don't think there should be any damages, but either Smuckers should have to prove their claim or change their claim.

You like frivilous lawsuits?

Companies shouldn't make claims without being able to back them up. I don't like frivilous suits, but I don't like companies deceiving the consumer either.

It claims 100% fruit, the product is 100% fruit.

End of story. They arent technically making a flase claim. Is it slightly misleading, maybe so, but they do indeed back up the claim, 100% fruit.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: Gaard

Originally posted by: rjain

Originally posted by: Gaard

Just because they're made from fruit doesn't make them 100% fruit. And if the ingredients for the jam aren't 100% fruit, how can the jam itself be 100% fruit?

Then applesauce can never be 100% fruit because it doesn't have the apple seeds.

That doesn't make any sense. Just because the whole fruit isn't being used doesn't make it less than 100% fruit. The fact that other ingredients besides fruit are being used does make it less than 100% fruit.

What is it using thats not from fruit.

All the ingrediants come from fruit. Fruit syrup, is from fruit, you dont need to add anything from the fruit to get fruit syrup.
Fruit pectin, is from fruit. Everything in it is 100% fruit.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: chess9
Vic:

Uh, you are missing the point. First of all, let's see if we can agree on some ground rules here.

1. Will you agree that advertising should be truthful?
2. Will you agree that if you placed an order for fried apples and were given fried fruit juice you wouldn't be happy?
3. Will you agree that screaming 100% fruit on the label in 18 point and listing the ingredients showing considerably less than 100% fruit in 6 point is, at least, deceptive?
4. Will you agree that sugar, pectin, and fruit juice are not fruit?

If you agree to the above, then why shouldn't a large company be required to advertise its products honestly? I'm assuming you didn't care for Clinton's hemming and hawing over definitions about what constituted sex, so why would you be more tolerant here?

Frankly, I eat Smuckers low fat peanut butter even though it is loaded with sugar. Their products are very good and can stand on their own WITHOUT THE LIES. Yes, I read the labels, but no one should be so blatantly trying to defraud the public. (However, I doubt the woman in Cali was defrauded but rather recruited to be the lead plaintiff. Lawyers do that all the time and it is really the worst part of this whole matter from my perspective.)

I will say, those who are bashing the lawyers certainly have their hearts in the right place. ,

-Robert

1. Technically it is truthful, everything the product contains comes from fruit.
2. Uh?
3. Its misleading, but not illegal, based on whats actually in the product, 100% fruit.
4. Where oh where does it say sugar? It says fruit syrup, which you dont need anything but fruit, to make fruit syrup. Fruit pectin, well thats from fruit, so it doesnt go against the 100% fruit label. Fruit juice is from fruit, so that also doesnt go against the label. I dont see how you say those mean its no 100% fruit. That stuff comes from fruit. And like I said you dont need sugar to make jam, you could use fruit produts(like fruit syrup, and fruit pectin) to make jam.