US: Trader Joe's sued for not disclosing heavy metals' presence in dark chocolates

Major US grocery chain Trader Joe's has been accused and sued for misleading and endangering customers by sale of dark chocolates which the lawsuit says contain high level of heavy metals. Heavy metal like cadmium and others are injurious to health. The lawsuit has been filed by a customer in New York represented by a group of law-firms specialising in class action lawsuits.

The lawsuit has accused Trader Joe's of not warning its customers about the high levels of heavy metals.

“High levels of lead and cadmium in food products is material to reasonable consumers, because these chemicals pose serious health risk, even in small dosages,” said the plaintiff, Thomas Ferrante.

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Trader Joe's has come in the crosshairs just a week after same law firms sued chocolate brand Hershey's.

Both lawsuits are based on a study carried out last month. Heavy metal content in popular chocolate bars was analysed in this study. California's Maximum Allowed Dose Level (MADL) was set as a benchmark for this study.

It was found that only five chocolate bars popular in the US had acceptable level of heavy metals. Two dozen others exceeded the permissible limits.

It was found that Trader Joe's dark chocolate with 72 per cent cocoa had high levels of lead. Another variant was found to contain high levels of lead and cadmium.

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