Each holiday season companies roll out their seasonally specific products, then comes the traditionalwave of jokes about how limited edition Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup shapes look nothing like they are supposed to. Tampa, Florida resident Cynthia Kelly has decided to do something by suing The Hershey Company for $5 million over “misleading” packaging.
Around Halloween, Kelly purchased a $4.49 Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkin treat from Aldi. While the product tasted fine, she was disappointed with how different it looked from the package. The orange and purple wrapper shows an image of a chocolate pumpkin with a face carved into it, revealing its orange insides.
She was taken aback when she unwrapped the chocolaty treat only to find an uncarved, almost-pumpkin-shaped blob. This led her to file a lawsuit with Florida‘s Middle District Court over the deceptive packaging. Kelly believed the candy would have “a cute looking carving of a pumpkin’s mouth and eyes as pictured on the product packaging.”
The lawsuit states the “artistic designs” as the reason she bought the Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkin in the first place. But the candy “did not contain any of the artistic carvings of the mouth or eyes as pictured on the label.” Her suit also takes issue with ghosts, bats, footballs, snowmen, and bell-shaped treats. Because to be fair, pumpkins are probably one of the more accurately shaped seasonal treats they offer.
Kelly claims that the discrepancies between the packaging and what is inside are “materially misleading.” “Numerous consumers have been tricked and misled by the pictures on the Products’ packaging,” the lawsuit states.
The main issue I see with this suit is proving the candy is manufactured in a shape that is wildly different from the package. Milk chocolate is pretty prone to melting, so its shape can be drastically distorted between the factory and the consumer. While she isn’t wrong that the packaging doesn’t accurately represent the product inside. Most American consumers are fairly aware of exaggerated packaging.
However, we do appreciate her taking these grievances to court and not to the streets like D-Fens did with Whammy Burger.
