I'll be honest, when the dairy fairy at the Cold Stone Creamery drops that giant, neon green glob of what the placard described as pistachio ice cream in my bowl, I've never thought to myself, "Does this have real pistachios in it?"
And I've never thought that because I just assumed it did. And Cold Stone Creamery assumed I would take the time to pull up their website and look at their list of ingredients to know there wasn't a single pistachio in the mix.
And you know what they say about people who make assumptions: they get slapped with a class action lawsuit for making false representations to their customers.
Lead plaintiff Jenna Marie Duncan 'reasonably believed that the Pistachio ice cream she purchased from defendant contained pistachio.'
But instead, all Cold Stone Creamery's pistachio ice cream contains is pistachio flavoring.
Want to make some pistachio flavoring at home?
It's easy. Just mix up an indeterminate amount of the following ingredients:
Water, Ethanol, Propylene Glycol, natural and artificial flavor, Yellow 5, and Blue 1.
Not only that, but it turns out that Cold Stone Creamery has been misleading its customers about many of its flavors.
No oranges in the orange Dreamsicle ice cream. No butter in the butter pecan. No raisins in the rum raisin. No rocks in the rocky road. And not a single moose stepped in the Moose Tracks, which isn't even a Cold Stone Creamery flavor, but I was on a roll.
Interestingly enough, the pistachio pudding-flavored ice cream DOES contain pistachio nuts. But when it comes to the regular pistachio flavor they have trouble pudding them in there. (Get it? Pudding!)
The judge acknowledges that flavoring can be a tricky thing for ice cream manufacturers. Is it an ingredient or an adjective?
'[The case] raises a deceptively complex question about the reasonable expectations of plaintiff and like-minded ice cream aficionados.
'Should a consumer ordering pistachio ice cream expect actual pistachios?
'And if the answer is ‘no,' should that leave them with a bitter aftertaste,' wrote the judge.
If you ask me, the whole thing, from Cold Stone Creamery not including real ingredients in their flavoring, to the class action lawsuit, is just nuts.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
