[CTVnews] Canada’s biggest grocery chains are finding themselves in a sticky situation after being accused of negligence for selling watered-down maple syrup in their stores.
A class-action lawsuit filed in Quebec’s Superior Court claims Loblaws, Metro, and Sobey’s were “betraying their customers’ trust” for years by selling cans of maple syrup from a producer southwest of Montreal that were allegedly cut with cane sugar even though they were advertised as being “pure.”
The plaintiff, Maude Fraser-Jodoin, originally filed an application to authorize the class-action lawsuit in April naming the producer, Érablière Steve Bourdeau, as the sole defendant. However, an amended application filed earlier this month now includes the names of the major grocery store chains, who are accused of demonstrating “negligence, recklessness, carelessness, or serious indifference” for putting watered-down syrup on their shelves.
It adds: “the grocery stores should have exercised caution and due diligence before offering this ‘pure’ maple syrup for sale at a low price, given the disparity with the value of other products; they should even have suspected that the disputed syrup was tampered with after it went on sale, in light of the available information.” |