Hormel sued again over ‘natural’ claims

A Florida man, on behalf of a class of consumers, has filed a lawsuit against Hormel Foods alleging that the company’s “100% Natural” and “No Preservatives” claims on its product labels are false and misleading, according to federal court documents. The lawsuit, filed Oct. 11 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Division, comes as the Food and Drug Administration mulls whether to formally regulate the term “natural,” which the agency now understands to be that “nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be expected to be in the food.”