Challenge to Mondelēz Sustainability Claims Advances With Narrowed Scope
A Illinois judge has allowed a putative class action challenging sustainability claims on Mondelēz International, Inc. products to proceed, while dismissing claims involving unpurchased products and requests for injunctive relief.
The case concerns a variety of sustainability-related representations on Mondelēz products, including “100% Sustainably Sourced Cocoa” claims on Oreo-brand cookies. The plaintiff, a California consumer, alleges that these representations are misleading because cocoa supply chains involve child and forced labor and environmentally destructive practices.
In an order issued December 18, 2025, the court found the plaintiff’s theory of deception plausible. While agreeing with Mondelēz that the plaintiff “cannot rely solely on sector-wide allegations,” the court concluded that she pleaded “sufficient Mondelēz-specific allegations to survive a motion to dismiss,” including references to an investigative exposé and prior litigation detailing labor abuses.
Mondelēz also argued that its use of the term “sustainable” was nonactionable puffery tied to its Cocoa Life program, which has sustainable aspirations. But when read together with the front-label “100%” promise and back-panel language about “protect[ing] people & planet,” the court held that a reasonable consumer might believe that Oreo’s sourcing practices are “100% sustainable.”
The court did, however, narrow the scope of the case. It rejected the plaintiff’s attempt to represent all purchasers of Mondelēz products bearing sustainability claims, limiting the action to the Oreo and Toblerone products she personally purchased. Acknowledging a split among courts on this issue, the court held that the plaintiff lacked standing to pursue claims involving unpurchased products at this stage of the litigation.
For similar reasons, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim for injunctive relief, concluding that any future injury was “paradigmatically speculative.”
The court also pared back the Toblerone claims, holding that the Cocoa Life seal in isolation could not be misleading. Because the Toblerone bars did not include accompanying sustainability text, “it necessary narrows” the plaintiff’s claims, the court held.
Consolidation Denied
Mondelēz separately moved to consolidate the case with another pending challenge to its “100% Sustainably Sourced Cocoa” representation and Cocoa Life seal. The court denied the motion, finding that consolidation would prejudice the other plaintiff.
The second challenge focuses on Mondelēz’s admitted practice of mixing cocoa beans from Cocoa Life-registered farms with beans from unregistered farms. That plaintiff alleges that Mondelēz’s “100%” representation is misleading because the company uses a “mass balance” accounting approach and fails to disclose the resulting lack of traceability and compositional uncertainty.
As the court summarized, “one plaintiff disputes Cocoa Life’s sustainability, and the other objects to there not being enough Cocoa Life cocoa in the final product.”
Although Mondelēz argued that the differing theories were relevant to class certification rather than consolidation, the court found the distinction unpersuasive. “Certification remains a question for another day,” the court explained, “but for now, it seems clear that all parties believe it untenable to pursue two theories of deception in one class action.” The court noted that interim class counsel would therefore be “likely, if not certain,” to abandon one of the theories.
The motion observes that counsel “previously abandoned a different consolidated plaintiff’s derivative claims,” and that the two theories here “seemingly conflict” due to the second plaintiff’s “indifference with ‘the integrity of the Cocoa Life program.’”
The cases are Waggener Van Meter v. Mondelēz International, Inc., No. 24-cv-7368 (N.D. Ill.), and Pearson v. Mondelēz International, Inc., No. 25-cv-10819 (N.D. Ill.).
