Seventh Circuit revives Chobani "Zero Sugar" class action on preemption
The Seventh Circuit revived a putative nationwide deceptive-marketing class action against Chobani over its Zero Sugar Greek yogurt, holding that FDA enforcement discretion does not preempt the state-law claims.
According to the available report, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit revived a putative nationwide class action alleging that Chobani deceptively marketed its Zero Sugar Greek yogurt, ruling that those claims are not preempted by the federal labeling regime — the snippet truncates the statutory citation, so the precise provision (commonly identified in this line of cases as the Federal Dietary Supplement Advertising and Labeling Act) should be confirmed against the opinion itself.
Why sophisticated counsel should care: the decision signals that a plaintiff need not wait for, or obtain, agency action on a labeling theory before pressing state-law deceptive-advertising and consumer-fraud claims. If the reasoning holds beyond the Seventh Circuit, packaged-food, beverage, and consumer-goods defendants face wider national exposure on "zero," "sugar-free," "natural," and similar naming or front-of-pack claims, and the defensive playbook of deferring to federal regulatory silence becomes less protective. Plaintiff-side firms will read the same ruling as an invitation to test other clean-label claims.
Concrete next steps: read the opinion for its treatment of enforcement discretion, evidentiary burdens, and any limits on the putative class definition, then audit label substantiation and marketing copy. Watch for rehearing and decisions in other circuits.