STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — If you’re looking to fulfill your daily dose of Vitamin C, don’t count on finding it at Starbucks. A new class-action lawsuit claims there is actually no fruit in the coffee giant’s popular Refresher drinks and accuses the company of misleading consumers with the promise of strawberry, acai, mango, dragonfruit and more.
According to Food & Wine magazine, a judge recently gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit alleging that six of the dozen Refreshers on the Starbucks menu don’t actually contain the fruits that are promised — or at least referenced — in their name.
Plaintiffs Joan Kominis and Jason McAllister claim they ordered a Strawberry Açaí Lemonade Refresher and a Strawberry Açaí Refresher, respectively, and were distressed to learn that the drinks did not contain any actual açaí, the publication noted. In their legal filing, the couple also alleges that the chain’s Mango Dragonfruit-based Refreshers don’t include any mango, and the Pineapple Passionfruit Refreshers are passionfruit-free.
Instead, the drinks are allegedly a blend of the other named fruits, along with “water, grape juice concentrate and sugar.”
“These missing fruit juices are important to consumers, because they are premium ingredients, and consumers value them over the less nutritious and cheaper grape juice concentrate found in the products,” the legal filing stated.
Starbucks has argued that the names of its Refreshers “accurately describe the flavors, as opposed to the ingredients of the products,” Food & Wine noted. The company also said that if customers were confused or had questions, they could get all the fruit-related facts from its baristas.
But U.S. District Judge John Cronan disagreed and has allowed nine of the 11 claims in the lawsuit to go forward. “[The] Court ultimately determines that a significant portion of reasonable consumers could find it misleading,” Cronan stated in a legal document last week.
The two plaintiffs are…
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