Brewing Trader Joe’s controversy: Customers allege they were misled about coffee’s low caffeine

Is your cup of Joe, just a cup for show?

Several coffee drinkers from around the country have filed a lawsuit on Thursday against grocery giant Trader Joe’s, alleging their store-branded French Roast Low Acid whole bean coffee has significantly less caffeine than customers are led to believe.

Tests on the coffee, plaintiffs say in the lawsuit, shows the product “contains half of the caffeine as a regular coffee blend.” They cite testing from competitors of Trade Joe’s that shows that the “Low Acid” coffee only has 51% of the caffeine of Trader Joe’s Dark French Roast coffee and 45% of the caffeine of Trader Joe’s House Blend coffee.

But because there is nothing on the label that indicates the lower caffeine levels, the suit says, “consumers purchase the Product believing that it is fully caffeinated when it is not.”

“It is an industry standard that a coffee’s caffeine levels are not highlighted on the product’s label unless some process is used to reduce the amount of caffeine contained therein,” attorney Trenton Kashima, an attorney representing plaintiffs from California, New York and Illinois, writes in the suit.

“For example, full caffeinated coffee does not have any special labeling denoting that it is fully caffeinated, but ‘decaf’ and ‘half-caff’ coffees are labelled as such,” the suit says. “Here, the Product does not disclose that it is ‘decaf’ and ‘half-caff’ coffee.”

They suit says everyday Americans are “unable to discover the nature of Defendant’s misrepresentation as they cannot examine the coffee before purchasing it, and testing the caffeine levels in a coffee involves scientific knowledge and equipment that is beyond the capabilities of a normal consumer.”

Calling it “false and deceptive advertising that forms a pattern of “unlawful and unfair business practices that harm the public,” these individuals are looking for monetary damages and for a federal judge to order Trader Joe’s to audit and reassess all prior customer claims regarding the product.

Trader Joe’s did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.

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