The paper highlighted lawsuits like ones accusing Kraft Heinz of misrepresenting the contents of its Parmesan cheese and complaints alleging that Quaker Oats tricked consumers into thinking its Maple & Brown Sugar oatmeal is made with real maple syrup. The Cheerios lawsuit is among a flurry of class-action-seeking complaints filling up the dockets in recent years, a litigation trend recently examined by the The plaintiffs are asking the court to order General Mills to change its labeling and 'pay restitution to restore funds that may have been acquired' by the company's allegedly deceptive practices. The lawsuit comes at a time of shifting breakfast habits and waning demand for cereal that have pushed General Mills revenues downward.Īnd it doesn't just target Cheerios but makes similar claims about other General Mills brands-including Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms and Trix, and also its line of breakfast biscuits. 'Cereal has long been established as a nutritious and wholesome way to start the day, and General Mills continues to stand behind the quality of these products and the accuracy of the products’ labels. 'This lawsuit is without merit,' a company spokesman told Law Blog. Despite the compelling evidence that sugar acts as a chronic liver toxin, detrimentally affecting health, to increase the price and sales of its products, General Mills leverages a policy and practice of marketing high-sugar cereals, bars, other foods with health and wellness claims.Ī General Mills spokesman said the plaintiffs are the one making misleading claims. Experimentally sound, peer-reviewed studies and meta-analyses convincingly show that consuming excessive added sugar-any amount above approximately 5% of daily caloric intake-greatly increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, and a wide variety of other chronic morbidity. Citing health studies, it states: The scientific evidence is compelling: Excessive consumption of added sugar is toxic to the human body. The lawsuit says the cereals, in reality, are really O's of doom. For years until 2013, the boxes touted a seal of approval from the American Heart Association. The cereals, like most food products, have a Nutrition Facts label specifying the ingredients and numbers of grams of sugar per serving.īut General Mills, the lawsuit claims, plays up the cereals's more nutritious ingredients, like its abundance of whole grains, that the company says can help lower cholesterol.

Cheerio ingredient label