Horizon Organic Milk and Silk Soymilk Settlement

The settlement covers purchases of Silk Soymilk and Horizon Organic Milk that contain evaporated cane juice purchased between 1/1/2005 and 4/19/2013. This includes the following products:

• Silk Organic Original Soymilk
• Silk Organic Vanilla Soymilk
• Silk Pure Coconut Original Coconutmilk
• Horizon Organic Lowfat Chocolate Milk plus DHA Omega-3
• Horizon Lowfat Strawberry Milk Box
• Horizon Lowfat Chocolate Milk Box
• Horizon Lowfat Vanilla Milk Box
• Horizon Sour Apple Spray Tuberz
• Horizon Surfin’ Strawberry Tuberz
• Horizon Blueberry Wave Tuberz
• Horizon Fat Free Vanilla Yogurt
• Horizon Strawberry Lemonade Squeeze Tuberz

The settlement fund pays according to two schedules depending on whether you have a proof of purchase:

• Proof of Purchase – if you have a proof of purchase, you will be refunded for 75% of your purchase price (capped at $50 per household)
• No Proof of Purchase – if you no longer have proof of purchase, you will be refunded 25% of the purchase price (maximum of 5 products per class member, approx $8)

NOT required, however claims not accompanied by a proof of purchase receive a smaller payout that claims accompanied with proof of purchase.

The plaintiffs alleged that that the makers of Horizon and Silk misleadingly labelled their products as containing evaporated cane juice. While the term evaporated cane juice may evoke images of a natural unrefined product, a juice of some sort, it is in fact sugar.

We love the marketing creativity, that the company used here. Realizing consumers don’t like sugar listed in the ingredients, but don’t like products without lots of said sugar, they were a little creative and came up with a win-win solution.

This is just the start of a revolution in food labeling. Imagine chips lightly flavored with organic evaporated sea water – practically a health food.