Ferrara Candy pays $2.5m to settle slack-fill class action lawsuit

Plaintiff Thomas Iglesias, who led the accusation last year, said he and other consumers were deceived into thinking those boxes were full of candies.

The suit also claimed a number of Ferrara’s products contain the same deficiency, including Lemonhead, Trolli, Black Forest gummy, RedHots, Chuckles and Jujyfruits. All these products are packaged in opaque boxes.

Iglesias claimed that Ferrara “uniformly under-fills the products’ boxes, rendering an extraordinary 41% of each box slack-fill,” ​thus, the candy maker violates California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, False Advertising and Unfair Competition Laws.

Ferrara, however, denied these allegations but said it agreed to settle the lawsuit to avoid the burden and expense of ongoing litigation.

“All of our products and labels comply with FDA regulations and provide consumers with the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions,”​ said the company.

Ferrara also promised to provide cash payment to consumers who bought one those accused candies from Feb 21, 2013 to June 21, 2018, and it agreed to modify quality control procedures and fill levels.