Does LaCroix contain toxic chemicals? This is what the lawsuits claim

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Things are definitely not shining.

La Croix's parent company, National Beverages, is facing a new lawsuit after new allegations that the company's president mistakenly thought his beverage containers were free of BPA, a toxic chemical. The chemical is said to affect neurodevelopment in children. Shares of National Beverage fell to a multi-year trough Wednesday at the announcement of a lawsuit against the company.

The lawsuit alleges that a former employee was fired after objecting to the plan. The former employee, Albert Dewjeski, former vice president of the company, said in the lawsuit that the company wanted to declare prematurely that The Cross may be free of BPA. Dejewski alleges that he was fired over the phone one day after filing a complaint at the highest level. "As of April 2019, all boxes manufactured for LaCroix products were made unlined with BPA," LaCroix said in a statement. The company also announced that it began converting to BPA-free coatings two years ago. The lawsuit was filed in New Jersey.

Before working for National Beverage, Dewjeski worked for Pepsico and Chobani. The lawsuit seeks damages for loss of wages and damage to its reputation. National Beverage responded to the complaint by saying, "False statements were made in the context of a dispute brought by a former employee seeking a monetary recovery from the company. We intend to vigorously defend our company and our brands against the misrepresentations of this former disgruntled employee. "

The Cross has not been alien to the controversy over the past year. The company is "actually in free fall," according to a research note from Guggenheim Securities. "The LaCroix brand has gone from bad to disastrous in a relatively short period of time due to the negative media attention to the brand's" natural "claim for flavoring ingredients that surfaced last October," according to the report. Analyst Laurent Grandet. .

Last year, a Chicago law firm filed a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that La Croix misled consumers by calling it "all natural", the complaint that the product was "made from unnatural flavors and synthetic compounds." The class action claims also that the chemicals used "include limonene, which can lead to kidney toxicity and tumors, linalool propionate, used to treat cancer, and linalool, which is used in the cockroach insecticide." The company said in response that the allegations in the lawsuit were "false, defamatory and intended to intentionally harm National Beverage and its shareholders".

While this may mislead consumers, "the natural term has escaped an enforceable definition of the Food and Drug Administration," according to Nicole Negowetti of the Harvard Law School's Law and Food Policy Clinic.

In January, a similar class action was filed in New York. As part of this lawsuit, the Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia, which had discovered between 36% and 98% of synthetic ingredients, had examined the content of La Croix.

In addition to the growing number of controversies, LaCroix also faces growing competition from Coca Cola, which acquired Topo Chico in 2017 for $ 220 million, and the acquisition of Sodastream by Pepsico last year.

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