A lawsuit filed with the Haifa District Court last week claims that Strauss Group Ltd. (TASE:STRS) chocolate puddings do not actually contain chocolate. The claimant has asked the court to recognize the suit as a NIS 228 million class-action suit.
The claimant alleges that Strauss is misleading customers by claiming that its Golan Chocolate pudding, Golan Bitter Chocolate pudding, and Strauss Chocolate pudding contain chocolate, when in practice they do not contain chocolate ingredients as defined by the chocolate standard.
"Emphasis on the chocolate ingredient in the accepted name (of the product), when the chocolate ingredient appearing in the product name is essential for characterizing the product and has a substantial effect on the public's perception of the food… is materially misleading and crude trampling of the provisions of the law by Strauss," states the motion for a class-action suit.
The claimant contends that he bought Strauss's chocolate puddings in 2005-12 in the belief that they were a unique chocolate product by the company that were different from its other chocolate puddings, where Strauss clearly and openly gives in a prominent place on the labels the full name of the product, which are "chocolate tasting". He contends that he believed that the products were different from the products of competing companies, which stated on the labels that the products were "chocolate tasting".
He adds, "The consumer seeing and reading the product name on the package in big white letters, thinks that this is a unique product, a chocolate product… Strauss is falsely presenting to the public the products as chocolate products by concealing and blurring the fact that these are not chocolate products pursuant to the law and the chocolate standard."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 8, 2012
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