(Reuters) -
Italian confectionery group Ferrero has agreed to set aside $3 million to
settle a class-action lawsuit championed by a Californian mother after she
discovered the group's Nutella chocolate spread packed more fat than jam or
syrup.
Notices of
class action settlements said that Ferrero USA Inc., the group's U.S. division,
would pay up to $4 for every jar of Nutella bought in California since August
2009, or bought anywhere else in the United States since January 2008.
The notices
posted on nutellaclassactionsettlement.com said the settlement was for
$3,050,000 in total.
Ferrero USA
also agreed to "modify certain marketing statements about Nutella"
and to give more prominence to nutrition labels on Nutella jars, the notices
said.
No one at
Ferrero was immediately available for comment.
Athena
Hohenberg, the mother of a 4-year old in San Diego, California, launched the
class-action lawsuit last year, alleging that Ferrero was promoting Nutella as
something "healthier than it actually is," court documents said.
Ferrero
lists sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa and skimmed milk as Nutella's main
ingredients. The typical serving size of 2 tablespoons contains 200 calories
and 11 grams of fat, it says on its website.
It markets
the dark, creamy spread worldwide as "an example of a tasty yet balanced
breakfast" when combined with milk, orange juice and wholewheat bread.
"Ms.
Hohenberg was surprised and upset to learn that Nutella was in fact not a
'healthy, nutritious' food but instead a product with the nutritional
properties of a candy bar," the lawsuit said.
It is not
the first time the spread, popular with children and young adults all over
Europe, is criticized for exaggerating its health benefits.
In 2008,
the British industry watchdog said a television commercial for Nutella had
broken advertising rules because it overstated the role Nutella can play in a
child's balanced diet.
Two years
ago, Italy complained to the European Union over the impact of stricter food
labeling on confectionary products, with Ferrero executives leading the charge
against Brussels.
Ferrero is
one of Italy's richest and most successful family-owned companies, but also one
of its more secretive. It had pre-tax earnings of 856 million euros ($1.14
billion) on sales of 7.2 billion euros for the year to end-August 2011.
Nutella was
invented in 1944 by Pietro Ferrero in a patisserie in Alba, near Turin. The
company, which also makes Kinder chocolates and Tic Tac sweets, has remained in
family hands since his death in 1949.
(Reporting
by Michel Rose; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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