Perfect Bar Products Contain Less Usable Protein Than Advertised, Class Action Alleges

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A proposed class action alleges the protein content claims on the front label of certain Perfect Bar products are unlawful and misleading given the protein in the snacks is not fully digestible by humans.

The 33-page lawsuit says that although Perfect Bar, LLC has represented that some of its products provide a certain amount of protein per serving—such as “15G PROTEIN” for the Dark Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Perfect Bar—it has failed to disclose that the protein is a lower-quality nut protein that lacks all nine essential amino acids, and is therefore not fully usable by humans.

More specifically, the complaint contends that the protein claims that appear on Perfect Bar’s products are misleading because they are stated “in the form of a quantitative amount appearing alone,” without any information about the quality of the protein.

Moreover, the suit alleges that some of the protein content claims—including those on the Perfect Peanut Cups, Perfect Bites, and Perfect Kids Bars—also violate California law because the defendant has failed to provide within the products’ nutrition facts panels a statement reflecting the corrected amount of protein per serving as a percent daily value.

All told, the lawsuit alleges consumers have been misled by Perfect Bar’s protein content claims and have overpaid for products that contain less usable protein, and are therefore worth less, than they expected.

The suit states that a high-quality protein is one that contains all nine essential amino acids, i.e., the elements of protein that the human body cannot produce on its own and must obtain through diet. Because the human body does not store amino acids, if a protein source lacks one or more of the essential amino acids, the body shuts down protein synthesis, and the rest of the amino acids from that source are discarded as waste, the case says. Thus, only protein sources that contain all nine essential amino acids are considered to be high-quality and fully usable, the suit relays.

Per the complaint, the FDA-required method for measuring a protein’s quality is known as the “Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score” (PDCAAS), and the highest quality proteins receive a PDCAAS score of 1.0, meaning they are fully usable by the human body. The suit contends that nut proteins, such as those used in the Perfect Bar products, have a PDCAAS score of between 0.4 and 0.5, which indicates that only 40 to 50 percent of the protein is “actually available to support human protein needs.”

The lawsuit alleges that the protein content claims on the front of the Perfect Bar products are therefore misleading because consumers are led to expect that they will receive more protein than their bodies can actually use.

“Accordingly, although Defendant advertises its Perfect Bar in Dark Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter flavor, for example, with a ‘15g PROTEIN’ claim, it actually provides, in a form that humans can use, as little as 7.5 grams of protein, i.e., less than half the protein consumers reasonably expect to receive based on the label,” the complaint states. “This is misleading.”

Moreover, the case argues that for some of the Perfect Bar products, including the Perfect Peanut Cups, Perfect Bites and Perfect Kids Bars, the defendant fails to state on the items’ nutrition facts panel the corrected amount of protein per serving in the form of a percent daily value, which takes into account a protein’s quality. According to the suit, the FDA prohibits front label protein claims unless a manufacturer specifies within the product’s nutrition facts panel the percent daily value of protein that the food provides.

The suit claims that consumers have been misled into paying a premium price for all of the Perfect Bar products that include a protein content claim on their front label given the items do not provide as much usable protein as buyers expected. Per the lawsuit, the defendant has attempted to capitalize on consumers’ desire for high-protein products by making “such unlawful and misleading representations.”

The case looks to represent anyone in the U.S. who purchased a Perfect Bar brand product that stated a specific amount of protein on its front label at any time since April 22, 2018.

A non-exhaustive list of the products covered by the lawsuit can be found here.

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