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In a federal class action lawsuit filed in Florida, Amanda Ramirez claims the company’s statement that its Velveeta Shells and Cheese cups are “ready in 3 ½ minutes” is "false and misleading" because the product actually takes longer than that to prepare.
Ramirez said those 3 ½ minutes do not include the time it takes to remove the lid and cheese sauce pouch, add in the correct amount of water, stir, and then mix in the cheese sauce after the cup has been microwaved before waiting for the product to “thicken upon standing.”
“Consumers seeing ‘ready in 3½ minutes’ will believe it represents the total amount of time it takes to prepare the product, meaning from the moment it is unopened to the moment it is ready for consumption,” reads the lawsuit.
“The label does not state the product takes ‘3½ minutes to cook in the microwave,’ which would have been true.”
Ramirez claims the company’s “misleading” practices resulted in her, and other consumers, choosing Kraft’s product over other competitors who “did not misrepresent their attributes, features, and/or components.”
She said she would not have purchased the product “had she known the truth.”
The lawsuit seeks more than $5 million in damages for consumers who purchased the Velveeta Shells and Cheese cups in Florida, as well as in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, New Mexico, Alaska, Iowa, Tennessee, and Virginia.
In a statement to NPR, Kraft Heinz called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said it would “strongly defend against the allegations in the complaint.”
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