The lawyers, who include Mississippi’s Don Barrett of the firm Barrett Law Group, who rose to prominence a decade ago for successfully suing the tobacco industry for hundreds of millions of dollars, are set to take on food industry giants including Heinz, PepsiCo and ConAgra Foods.

Off the shelves

Over the last four months, law suits have been filed claiming the brands are misleading consumers. A federal court in California has already been asked to halt ConAgra’s sales of Pam cooking spray, Swiss Miss cocoa products and Hunt’s canned tomatoes, according to the Boston Globe newspaper.
‘It’s a crime, and that makes it a crime to sell it,’ said Mr Barrett. ‘That means these products should be taken off the shelves.’
The food companies have so far played down the suits, countering that they are without merit and driven by the lawyers’ financial motivation.

Implausible

Kirsten Polovoy, an industry lawyer at Philadelphia law firm Montgomery McCracken, said: ‘It’s difficult to take some of these claims seriously, for instance, that a consumer was deceived into believing that a chocolate hazelnut spread for bread was healthy for children… I think the courts are starting to look at the implausibility of some of these suits.’
However, the lawyers look set to press ahead with the litigation, with Mr Barrett claiming the group could seek damages for four years of miss-selling, potentially amounting to billions of dollars.