A bowl of mac and cheese is nothing to get worked up over. A Florida woman has some beef with the Kraft Heinz Company, now suing them for $5 million after claiming they included the wrong instructions about the time it takes to prepare its Velveeta microwavable mac and cheese cups.
A West Palm Beach-based law firm filed the lawsuit on behalf of Amanda Ramirez on November 18, 2022. In the class-action suit, Ramirez alleges that Kraft Heinz violated federal law by saying Velveeta Shells & Cheese cups take 3½ minutes to prepare.
Although the box does read “ready in 3½ minutes,” that’s actually the amount of time the product takes to cook in the microwave. The suit says it takes additional time to complete the other required steps, including the following:
- “First, consumers must ‘REMOVE lid and Cheese Sauce Pouch.’
- Next, they must ‘ADD water to fill line in cup. STIR.’
- Third, ‘MICROWAVE, uncovered, on HIGH 3-1/2 min. DO NOT DRAIN.’
- Finally, they should ‘STIR IN contents of cheese sauce pouch.’
- Defendant then notes that ‘CHEESE SAUCE WILL THICKEN UPON STANDING.'”
“Consumers seeing ‘ready in 3½ minutes’ will believe it represents the total amount of time it takes to prepare the Product,” the suit states. “Meaning from the moment it is unopened to the moment it is ready for consumption.”
The lawsuit went into details about the price Ramirez bought the product for and when but did not specify how long it actually took her to prepare the mac and cheese. Details like Ramirez purchasing the mac and cheese for a “premium price” of $10.99 “between October and November 2022, among other times” was mentioned.
The plaintiffs are seeking at least $5 million in damages, “including statutory and punitive exclusive of interest and costs.” The Kraft Heinz Company responded to the lawsuit by saying: “We are aware of this frivolous lawsuit and will strongly defend against the allegations in the complaint.”
Source: https://www.classaction.org/media/ramirez-v-kraft-heinz-food-company.pdf