Use of Roundup Weedkiller Means Shredded Wheat Not “100% Natural” Class Action Lawsuit Claims

Post Foods faces a class action lawsuit over claims that Shredded Wheat cereal is “100% Natural,” indicating that the marketing statements are false and misleading since the product uses grain treated with Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer. 

The Shredded Wheat class action lawsuit was filed by Andy Wu in the U.S. District court for the Northern District of California on June 22, naming Post Foods, LLC and Post Holdings, Inc. as defendants.

According to the complaint (PDF), Post made false, deceptive and misleading claims that its Shredded Wheat products are 100% natural, failing to disclose that users may be exposed to residue of Roundup, and the active chemical ingredient glyphosate, which has recently been linked to a potential risk of cancer.

“Shredded Wheat is not ‘100% Natural,’ but instead contains the artificial chemical glyphosate, a potent biocide that last year was declared a probable human carcinogen by the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization,” the lawsuit states. “Glyphosate makes its way into Shredded Wheat not simply because it is used as an agricultural weed killer, but because it is sprayed on the wheat as a drying agent (to increase crop yield and thereby to increase profit) shortly before harvest.”

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) warned in March 2015 that glyphosate was a likely cancer-causing agent.

The lawsuit seeks to represent consumers who purchased Shredded Wheat and seeks refunds for purchasers and a court-ordered corrective advertising campaign to inform the public of the use of glyphosate in Shredded Wheat products.

Wu said in the lawsuit that he purchased Shredded Wheat because Post aggressively marketed it as “100% Natural Whole Grain Wheat” and Wu wished to avoid pesticides and paid a premium for that feature.

Roundup Cancer Concerns

The case comes as Monsanto faces a growing number of Roundup cancer lawsuits filed by farm workers and others in the agricultural industry who have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma following heavy exposure to the weedkiller. The IARC’s ruling has also raised concerns among many consumers and federal regulators about the potential health risks associated with foods containing glyphosate residue.

A recent U.S. Geological Survey on glyphosate usage nationwide found that an estimated 2.6 billion pounds of the herbicide has been sprayed on America’s agricultural land over the two decades since the mid-1990s, when Monsanto introduced “Roundup Ready” crops that are designed to survive being sprayed with glyphosate, killing the weeds but not the crops.

In all that time, the FDA has never tested for residue or buildup in the food sold to Americans nationwide. In a report published in 2014, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the FDA for this deficiency in its pesticide program.

According to allegations raised in the product liability lawsuits being pursued against Monsanto, plaintiffs allege that the manufacturer should have warned about the link between Roundup and non-Hodgkins lymphoma for farmers, landscapers and others exposed to large amounts of the chemical, as safety precautions could have been taken or other products could have been used to control the growth of weeds.