Dive Brief:
- Mondelez International has reached a settlement agreement with the state of California after the company did not inform residents about the high levels of lead contained in Nabisco Ginger Snaps.
- The settlement amounts to $750,000 in civil penalties, legal fees, and costs, improvements to product sourcing and testing, and the addition of a food quality auditor to the company's staff.
- Testing showed that one serving of the ginger snaps contained nine times the amount of lead above the threshold that requires a warning label on the product, per California's Proposition 65, according to California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Dive Insight:
Mondelez confirmed in a statement that the products do not pose any health or safety concerns and are compliant with state and federal laws.
Another compound is currently being considered under Proposition 65: glyphosate, the primary component in Monsanto's Roundup. The California EPA is pushing to have glyphosate classified as carcinogenic under Prop 65, which means products like Roundup would have to bear a warning label. In October, Monsanto requested that California drop this pursuit.
Last week, Monsanto officially took legal action to prevent glyphosate from being listed as carcinogenic, calling the attempt a "flawed" constitutional violation "because the state would be ceding the basis of its regulatory authority to an unelected and non-transparent foreign body that is not under the oversight or control of any federal or state government entity," Horticulture Week reported.
Still another company contending with Prop. 65 is PepsiCo, which announced in September that it would reduce its use of 4-MEI, a chemical in the caramel color commonly used in soda. That reduction is part of its own settlement with the Center for Environmental Health over Prop 65.