Whole Foods And The Case Of The Missing Yogurt

A two-year old lawsuit regarding the mislabeling of a Whole Foods yogurt product continues to plague the grocery chain despite a court ruling in its favor last month.

The dispute involved the mislabeling of Whole Foods' 365 plain Greek yogurt, which was found to contain an average of 11.4 grams of sugar in a Consumer Reports analysis, while the label indicated the product only contained 2 grams of sugar.

A Texas judge ruled against the plaintiffs as they had not conducted FDA-compliant testing, which requires samples from 12 cases of yogurt, according to Philly.com.

The plaintiffs, however, claim that the company secretly destroyed all samples of the yogurt, making it impossible to conduct the test. Joseph Osefchen of the DeNittis Osefchen law firm says, "The law is clear. You can't destroy evidence. If everyone could get out of a lawsuit by burning documents, then everyone would do that."

When reached for a comment, Whole Foods spokesperson Liz Burkhart tells Philly.com, "Whole Foods Market disputes the claims in the recent motion filed by the plaintiffs and intends to vigorously defend the allegations of spoliation, which we believe are unfounded. Whole Foods Market took reasonable steps to preserve relevant evidence for this case and we believe there is more than sufficient evidence supporting that fact."