NPR (“2 Californians bought Barilla pasta thinking it was made in Italy. Now they’re suing.”):
What would it be like to live in a world where everything that was printed in an ad or said in a commercial were true, without you having to read the fine print?
It seems that’s the world that Matthew Sinatro and Jessica Prost are seeking to build — at least when it comes to spaghetti.
The two are behind a class action lawsuit against the pasta-making company Barilla, which they say is deliberately deceiving shoppers by using the slogan “Italy’s #1 Brand of Pasta” on its packaging.
Despite the green, white and red stylized Italian flags displayed on the blue boxes of angel hair, fusilli and bowtie pastas, a complaint filed in Northern California notes that the majority of the company’s products sold in the U.S. are produced in Iowa and New York and are not made with ingredients sourced from Italy.
The company was founded by Pietro Barilla in 1877 in Parma, Italy. It is the “biggest pasta producer in the world” and constitutes nearly 45% of the Italian market for pasta. So, its claim is not mere puffery; it’s factually correct.
It is decidedly not a claim that the product is produced in Italy. Indeed, most global brands have manufacturing facilities in multiple countries or have long since sourced their parts from overseas.
So, for example, BMW and Mercedes are fine German automobiles. Many of their most popular models for sale in the United States are made in here. Conversely, there’s not a more classic American brand than Coca-Cola; it has bottling plants all over the world.
Sinatro and Prost argue in their complaint that they were duped by the company’s alleged “false advertising” and deceptive marketing practices and that they would not have spent a combined total of $6 on Barilla products had they known the pastas they were taking home were made in the United States. Instead, they would have opted for cheaper alternatives.
So . . . these idiots bought six dollars worth of pasta, total, and are claiming harm? It’s clearly bullshit. Indeed, they almost certainly bought the pasta with the intent of filing this absurd suit.
“[C]onsumers willingly pay more for Italian sounding and/or looking products,” and Barilla leveraged the implied connection to Italy “[i]n an effort to increase profits and to obtain an unfair competitive advantage,” the complaint states.
Again, Barilla made no claim whatsoever that its product is made in Italy. Indeed, I happen to have two boxes of Barilla lasagne. And, you know what? Everything on the box is written in English! Including the Net Wt. 1 LB (454 g). Do these dolts think Italians print their packages in English?
Conversely, my package of De Cecco Thin Spaghetti no. 11 (it was an accidental purchase; it must have been mixed in with the bucatini) says MADE IN ITALY on the box. Which, in all candor, I never noticed until I checked just now. (In fairness, aside from “dal 1886” and “METODO DE CECCO,” everything else on the box, including MADE IN ITALY, is written in English.)
My box of San Giorgio Angel Hair No. 12 (also almost surely an accidental purchase, as I much prefer a denser long pasta) makes no mention of Italy at all. But San Giorgio sure sounds Italian to me!
Barilla did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment, but the company does address the issue on its website.
“Barilla Pasta that is sold in the United States is made in our plants in Ames, IA and Avon, NY, with a few exceptions. Barilla Tortellini and Barilla Oven Ready Lasagne are made in Italy,” the website states.
The site also notes that the recipes used in the U.S. are the same as those used in Parma, Italy, and that the pastas are made by the same types of machines. The company’s 2021 financial report states that the U.S. “continues to represent the most important market in the [Americas] region.”
Court documents show that Barilla filed to get the case dismissed, arguing that Sinatro and Prost couldn’t prove that they suffered financial harm. Sinatro, who lives in San Francisco, purchased one box of angel hair pasta for about $2, while Prost bought two boxes of spaghetti for approximately $2 each at a grocery store in Los Angeles, according to the complaint.
The company moved to dismiss the case in August, but a judge rejected the request last week.
I scanned through the ruling by Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu and my lay takeaway is simply that it’s incredibly hard to meet the burden for summary judgment. Barilla’s claims—that 1) the “Italy’s #1 Brand of Pasta” is a Federally-approved trademark; 2) plaintiffs suffered no harm, in that their pasta does not command a premium price; and 3) in any case, knowing now that the pasta is made in the USA precludes their being deceived in the future; and 4) $6 does not meet the threshold to file a Federal lawsuit strike me as imminently reasonable. The precedents with regard to 3 and 4 are particularly absurd.
Consumers ought to be able to sue for genuine harm caused by misleading claims made by sellers. Here, though, there was zero harm and zero misrepresentation. This is just a mockery of the tort system.
