This pisses me off. I’m sure they charged more, of course!
(Reuters) – Kroger Co, the biggest U.S. supermarket operator, faces a lawsuit claiming it deceived consumers by marketing a store brand as humanely raised chicken products when the animals were raised under standard commercial farming.
The complaint, filed late Tuesday in Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, is seeking class-action status against Kroger for allegedly misleading California consumers with claims about the grocer’s “Simple Truth” premium-priced store brand of chicken.
The “Simple Truth” chicken products are packaged with labeling that stated the animals were raised “in a humane environment” and “cage free,” according to the lawsuit.
However, standard industry practice for broiler chickens is to house them inside large buildings, not cages, according to industry experts. The “Simple Truth” chicken products are produced by Perdue Farms, which has followed industry practices such as electric stunning birds prior to slaughter, according to the lawsuit.
Kroger spokesman Keith Dailey said Wednesday that the company had not seen a copy of the complaint and had no comment on the case.
The case highlights the growing tension between food retailers and U.S. consumers, who have become more vocal over how food is produced and marketed to the public.
“Looking to profit from growing consumer awareness of, and concern with, the treatment of farm animals raised for meat production, Kroger engaged in a deceptive and misleading marketing scheme to promote its ‘Simple Truth’ store brand chicken as having been sourced from chickens raised ‘cage free in a humane environment’,” according to the complaint.
“In fact, Simple Truth chickens are treated no differently than other mass-produced chickens on the market.”
Okay. Urban me has shopping choices – Kroger, Publix, Trader Joe’s. No surprise I’m sure that what I actually feed me and the dog comes from Traders. Publix has a bakery and better choice of stuff for cleaning the house. Meanwhile, even though Kroger built a snazzy new branch in my neighborhood I only go there if I can’t sleep and decide to shop at 1am. Reasons? Most important is miserable employees. When I asked about this at Publix, the employees there confirmed my observations – employees at Kroger get worse pay and worse working conditions compared to Publix. Traders is well known for being especially good to employees. Finally, as a second reason for avoiding Kroger, when the new store opened and I optimistically went there right away, they were selling Ann Coulter’s latest spew prominently displayed in prime supermarket real estate at the end of the isle right at eye level.
So color me not surprised that Kroger management cheats their customers.
I bought some of the tainted/recalled “Simple truth” peanut butter the other year and got pretty ill. I use Kroger for vegetables mostly. Publix is good to find thing for meals for 2 people and yes, the bakery is very good. And, yes, there is very little turnover of employees at Publix and people there know me by name. We have a locally owned grocery store where we buy meats in bulk. They buy chicken from a small South Georgia poultry company. The chickens are “normal” sized, don’t shrink up when cooked. The store grinds its own hamburger.
On an unrelated note, we in Atlanta name our Kroger stores. There is one called Disco Kroger because it is next to the location of an old disco in Atlanta (a weird night crowd.) Murder Kroger in Midtown, a high crime area. Hipster Kroger and the one near my house Ghetto Kroger.
I think the one I go to is probably the one you call the Hipster Kroger, in the Edgewood shopping center? My night shift job is near the Murder Kroger. By ghetto Kroger, do you mean the one past Grant Park? Is that on Moreland?
Also, how do you hook up with that South Georgia poultry company?
FWIW, contrary to what people seem to think, Traders is cheaper than Publix, and Publix is cheaper than Krogers – at least for the things I get – produce, dairy, dog treats and hands down, the cheapest good wine anywhere.
Yeah, that’s a weasel thing to do. What I am sure Kroger was counting on was that a person’s mental picture of “humane” is vastly different from some Dept. of Ag. legal definition of “humane”.
To a person, “humane” might mean raised as free range. “Oh good”, you think, and pick up a package of the ‘humanely raised’ chicken.
And Kroger laughs at you because, well, they gave the birds “x” number of square inches per bird and that meets the Dept. of Ag.’s definition of “humane”, and ‘did you think we meant something else?’, ‘well, we met the definition of the regulation so the joke’s on you, chump, ha, ha’.
Well, somebody in marketing thought it would be a great way to charge a premium price for the same old junk, and I hope they get nailed for it.
Here in the PNW, Kroger is known as Fred Meyer. I’m not all that familiar with real Krogers, but Fred Meyers (which started in Portland and later got taken over) seems somewhat better than what little I remember of Krogers. They defintely lost a lot of my future business with this sneaky little gimmick, although I don’t have a lot of options.
Safeway here sux too. We have Whole Paycheck and a couple of local versions of Whole Foods that are marginally better (but still “spendy” as they say in white people parts of the country). We have a couple of Trader Joes, but they are all located too far away, all in “hip” neighborhoods with limited parking (so even if you are up for a drive, you might just end up driving to Freddy’s if you can’t find parking). They were going to start a new Trader Joe’s a mile from here (in the hood), which made me happy. Then there was a scandal because they were getting corporate welfare (the city was giving the developer the land for free) and the some black civic groups protested that having decent, affordable stores in the neighborhood would encourage gentrification. So TJ’s pulled out. Now I’m not as keen about TJs as I used to be, and it looks like the grocery situation here will not improve during my lifetime.
I was buying Simple Truth brand because I wanted to send a message to Kroger that yes – we do want humanely-produced food – even out here in the sticks. The Kroger is right around the corner from me. Publix a little further. WF and TJ’s are clear across the county.
I actually assumed they were lying about the chicken. Now that I know for sure I’ll just go to Publix or trek into town to WF or TJs…neither of whom I like all that well either.