Peanut butter is made from peanuts, tomato paste is made from tomatoes, and guacamole is made from avocados, right?
Wrong. The guacamole sold by Kraft Foods Inc., one of the best-selling avocado dips in the nation, calls for modified food starch, hefty amounts of coconut and soybean oils and a dose of food coloring. The dip contains precious little avocado, but many customers mistake it for wholly guacamole.
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles woman sued the Northfield, Ill., food company, alleging that it committed fraud by calling its dip guacamole. Her lawyer says suits against other purveyors of "fake guacamole" will be filed soon.
The suit highlights the liberty some food companies take in labeling their products.
If consumers read the fine print, they would discover that Kraft Dips Guacamole contains less than 2 percent avocado. But few do. California avocado growers, who account for 95 percent of the U.S. avocado crop, said they didn't know that store-bought guacamole contains little of their produce.
"We have not looked at this issue, but we might follow it now that we are aware of it," said Tom Bellamore, the top lawyer at the California Avocado Commission.
Kraft and other food companies say that they don't deceive customers by skimping on the avocado. A spokeswoman for the company said most consumers understood that guacamole is part of the company's line of "flavored" dips.
"We think customers understand that it isn't made from avocado," said Claire Regan, Kraft Foods' vice president of corporate affairs. "All of the ingredients are listed on the label for consumers to reference."
Nonetheless, Kraft is relabeling the product.
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