Starbucks Facing Lawsuit Over Their Refreshers

Starbucks is facing a lawsuit with its customers alleging their refreshers do not actually contain fruit. Their popular drinks like Mango Dragonfruit, Strawberry Acai, and Pineapple Passionfruit are generally made from green coffee extract, water, grape juice concentrate, and sugar. They include freeze dried pieces of the respective fruits, however, that is all the fruit there is.

With these drinks costing anywhere from $3.95 to $5.95, customers are saying they were misled by the names of the refreshers and that they wouldn’t have paid as much as they did for something that only partially contained real fruit. The global company wanted to have the case be dismissed. They argued that reasonable people would not be misled by the advertising. They say that the drink describes the taste, not the ingredients.

However, the New York court decided that is was reasonable for customers to expect the drinks to have fruits in them. U.S. District Judge John P. Cronan cited that Starbucks drinks for the most part are named after their ingredients such as their iced matcha latte which actually contains matcha.

The company clapped back and said the allegations are inaccurate do not possess any merit. They said they will be defending themselves against these claims.

Other companies have faced similar class action lawsuits over their advertisements and labels. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell have all have had their fair share of legal troubles. One of the biggest cases was the settlement between Subway and customers claiming that footlong sandwiches were not actually a foot long.