Smucker in a jam?

Labelling issues have come to the fore for US jam maker JM Smucker with a Californian woman suing the company over 'Simply 100 Per Cent Fruit' that might actually be less than 50 per cent fruit.

Reports in the US media claim that Neal Loeb has filed a court case in Dane County Circuit Court highlighting a recent analysis by the Washington-based non-profit watchdog the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI​) that found Smucker's line of 'Simply 100 Per Cent Fruit' is not 100 per cent fruit.

The case contends that the 'Simply 100 Per Cent Fruit' label "violates Wisconsin's Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which bars the assertion of fact that is untrue, deceptive or misleading"​. It also claims that JM Smucker was "unjustly enriched because it knew of the actual ingredients but sold the product at an inflated price"​, said an Associated Press​ report.

In a statement last month, the CSPI said Smucker's 'Strawberry Spreadable Fruit' is only 30 per cent actual strawberries with 70 per cent fruit syrup from apples and pineapples, lemon juice concentrate, pectin, red grape juice concentrate and other unspecified natural ingredients. The blueberry spread is only 43 per cent blueberries, the watchdog further claimed.

The group called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to "crack down on Smucker's false labelling"​, and to require all food companies to declare the percentages of key ingredients on the label.

All 15 European Union countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand, currently require some form of percentage-ingredient labelling on food products.