Low-calorie ice cream that actually tastes good is not very easy to find. Many brands offer less calories, but a ton of sugar. Some have little to no taste. Some don’t even taste like ice cream! That’s exactly why cult ice cream brand Halo Top has been so popular in the last few years. By using calorie-free Stevia and sugar alcohols, the brand keeps calories and sugar counts low, with less than eight grams of sugar per half-cup serving. Most importantly, it tastes good — so good, in fact, that last year, they became the best-selling pint of ice cream in United States grocery stores. Unfortunately, their record is about to be taken down a notch. Halo Top is being sued, and it’s for a reason we actually get.
It seems that the ice cream brand might have been cheating their customers: Halo Top is being sued by customers who complain that they dramatically under-fill their pints of ice cream. According to Today, the proposed class-action suit was filed earlier this month in California. The suit states that, “Purchasers of the premium-priced ice cream simply have no idea how much ice cream they will get each and every time they buy a Halo Top ‘pint.’ And Halo Top has been doing this for years.”
Plantiffs Youssif Kamal of Los Angeles and Gillian Neely of San Diego say they have purchased Halo Top several times over the last three years, and often received less than a full pint of ice cream. They are now saying that they wouldn’t have bought it if they knew how under-filled it was. The complaint states that Halo Top knows what it’s doing, but won’t do anything about it.
While the suit doesn’t specify exactly how much the company fails to fill the containers, it does state that the under-filling seems to be random and unrelated to flavor or where it was purchased.
Do they have a leg to stand on with this case? Food Navigator spoke to a few lawyers who informed them of a “slack fill” claim. This states that “slack fill,” aka leaving a lot of empty space in a container, is illegal in California. That seems pretty damning, but they also said it’s important to note that there are many legal reasons under-filling could have happened, like natural product settling or packaging machine requirements.
William Dance, an attorney at Tucker Ellis, stated, “Halo Top’s initial defense will probably be a motion to dismiss contending that plaintiffs fail to state sufficient facts to support their claim. Since they do not state any specific facts, but rather only vague, broad generalities, Halo Top has a strong argument there.”
This is the second time Halo Top has been sued in 2018. In May, a man sued Halo Top and its parent company, Eden Creamery, for the label that describes the dessert as a low-calorie ice cream. He claimed it was deceptive, saying that the product doesn’t contain the amount of fat required to call itself ice cream.
Whether you love Halo Top or not, it’s actually not hard to make your own healthy-ish ice cream treat. The So Yummy team developed a few crazy easy ice cream recipes that require little effort and ingredients you probably already have hanging out in your kitchen.
Here’s to guilt-free frozen treats!
