It’s hard to believe what people are complaining about these days.
Two women filed a lawsuit against Unilever United States Inc., the company behind the butter-flavored, calorie-free, fat-free vegetable oil I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! Spray, argued that the product’s label misrepresents fat and calorie content based on artificially low portion sizes, and argued that the product should be considered a type of “butter” and not a “spray.”
A federal district court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the plaintiffs did not plausibly allege that Butter! Spray was not a “spray-type” fat or oil under Food and Drug Administration regulations, among other arguments.
As relayed in a decision Tuesday by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, “FDA has developed elaborate rules for appropriate food serving sizes”
; and that “under the specific rules governing butter and related products, the Butter! Spray is divided into into two possible subcategories: “spray types” and “butter, margarine, oil, shortening.”That ruling goes on to say “that as a matter of legal classification, Smör! Spray was a ‘spray’. In common parlance, a ‘spray’ refers to liquid dispensed in the form of drops, which are released from a mechanism that causes the product can be applied that way. Furthermore, the notion that Butter! Spray could be accommodated under the FDA’s legal classification for ‘butter’ is implausible.”
Affirming, the Court of Appeals held that “the information on the product’s label complies with federal food labeling requirements for “spray-type” fats and oils. The product is a spray under federal regulations, and it was labeled accordingly.”
Source link
