The California law firm of Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer, who represents Piedmont resident Colleen Gallagher, has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court on behalf of all consumers who have purchased food products from Chipotle between April 27, 2015 and the present.
The lawsuit charges Chipotle with violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because its food labeling is false and misleading and deceived customers into paying more for their food. “As Chipotle told consumers, it was ‘G-M-Over it,’ the opposite was true,” Gallagher said. “In fact, Chipotle’s menu has never been at any time free of GMOs.”
Details of the lawsuit allege that Chipotle serves meat products from animals fed GMO grains, including soy and corn, its cheese and sour cream come from farms that feed animals with GMOs, and that Chipotle also sells soft drinks made with corn syrup, a GMO.
According to Fox News, Reuters tried to get a statement from Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold, but Arnold declined to comment on the details of the case. But he did tell Reuters the company plans to contest the lawsuit.
You have to look under Chipotle’s ‘Frequently asked questions’
Chipotle has a website dedicated to consumer’s frequently asked questions.
The website is not part of the Chipotle Mexican Grill website, and you won’t find any FAQs section on it, either. But under the FAQ website, Chipotle has a disclaimer that says the company has little or no control over its supply sources.
Under the question, How does Chipotle know your ingredients are non-GMO?, Chipotle says: “Due to the potential for cross-contamination in fields, facilities or during shipping, it may be that trace amounts of GMOs are present in our food from time to time. For this reason, we identify our ingredients as “non-GMO” rather than “GMO-free” or other terminology that might be misunderstood as a guarantee of absolutely zero genetically engineered content.”
Very few people are going to take the time to read what Chipotle has to say about trying to use non-GMO produced products in their food. And the lawsuit might come down to a matter of semantics and the fact that very few people take the time to read disclaimers on anything.
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