Lindt admits its ‘excellence’ claim on chocolate is just ‘puffery’ in lawsuit over lead levels

The words “excellence” and “expertly crafted with the finest ingredients” emblazoned on Lindt’s packaging are nothing more than product “puffery,” according to the Swiss chocolatier’s lawyers.

In December 2022, dark chocolate lovers took pause after Consumer Reports found cadmium and lead in all 28 bars it tested — “heavy metals linked to a host of health problems in children and adults.” Two months later, a class-action lawsuit followed, led by consumers concerned with the contamination of various chocolate bars, including two by Lindt.

In an unsuccessful attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed, Lindt’s lawyers recently admitted that the chocolate maker’s messaging amounts to product “puffery,” outlined in the court decision as “exaggerated advertising, blustering and boasting upon which no reasonable buyer would rely,” AFP reports.

Consumer Reports scientists listed Lindt’s Excellence Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa as “high” in cadmium and its Excellence Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa as “high” in lead.

Though they detected cadmium and lead in all dark chocolate bars they tested, the nonprofit consumer organization named two bars made by American chocolate maker Ghirardelli, owned by Lindt & Sprüngli, among the five “safer choices”: Ghirardelli’s Intense Dark Chocolate 86% Cacao and Intense Dark Chocolate Twilight Delight 72% Cacao, Mast’s Organic Dark Chocolate 80% Cocoa, Taza Chocolate’s Organic Deliciously Dark Chocolate 70% Cacao and Valrhona’s Abinao Dark Chocolate 85% Cacao.

The report may have found higher concentrations of heavy metals in other bars, but the consumers involved in the class-action lawsuit argued they had paid more for Lindt based on the understanding they were “purchasing quality and safe dark chocolate.” As such, they accused the chocolate maker of violating labelling rules in Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada and New York.

The chocolatier reportedly “disagrees with all the allegations made in the U.S. lawsuit,” telling APF in a statement: “Our Lindt & Sprüngli quality and safety procedures ensure that all products comply with all applicable safety standards and declaration requirements and are safe to consume.”

The “puffery argument” was apparently intended not as an admission of shoddy goods but as a “technical” legal response. Lindt told AFP that the argument was “used to clarify that an advertising challenged by plaintiffs is not sufficiently objective to support the specific false advertising claim being made.”

In contrast to the message relayed in court, Lindt also told AFP it “stood by” its assertion of “excellence” on product packaging and chocolate “expertly crafted with the finest ingredients.”

According to an unaffiliated 2022 report from the nonprofit organization As You Sow, producers can reduce the lead and cadmium levels in chocolate by not buying cocoa beans from regions with high levels of heavy metals, USA Today reports. Farmers can also stop planting new cacao orchards in these regions, use different farming equipment, increase soil pH, and introduce other clean practices to help prevent lead contamination.

Ana Rule, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who wasn’t involved in the study, told USA Today that continuing to test chocolate is critical. “Every time we look for metals, we’re finding them,” she said. “It’s good to keep monitoring these consumer products to be able to identify sources and inform.”

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