Spice Islands, Tone’s Herbs and Spices ‘Tainted’ with Toxic Heavy Metals, Class Action Alleges

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A proposed class action alleges a number of Spice Islands and Tone’s herbs and spices are tainted with heightened levels of toxic heavy metals, including lead, arsenic and cadmium. 

The 23-page case against B&G Foods, Inc. is among the latest proposed class actions to center on a November 2021 Consumer Reports piece that revealed that certain brands of herbs and spices are tainted with concerning levels of toxic heavy metals, which have been linked to a number of serious health conditions. 

The lawsuit, filed in California, singles out Spice Islands’ sweet basil and ground ginger and Tone’s ground thyme as allegedly containing the unsafe metals. 

According to the suit, no reasonable consumer would know, or have reason to know, that Spice Islands and Tone’s herbs and spices contain unsafe amounts of heavy metals. The complaint alleges B&G Foods has “stood idly by with a reckless disregard for its consumers’ health and well-being” while other companies in the industry have devised ways to limit the heavy metals in their herbs and spices. 

For its report, Consumer Reports utilized a plasma mass spectrometry procedure to determine that certain herbs and spices contain levels of heavy metals that render the products unsafe for human consumption, the lawsuit explains. Consumer Reports analyzed 126 individual items from brands such as Great Value, La Flor, McCormick, Trader Joe’s and those made by B&G, and found that “[r]oughly one-third of the products tested, 40 in total, had high enough levels of arsenic, lead, and cadmium combined, on average, to pose a health concern for children when regularly consumed in typical serving sizes.” Per the suit, most of the products’ heavy metal content raised concern for adults as well. 

The lawsuit contends that although it is possible for companies who sell herbs and spices to limit the heavy metals in their products, B&G is among those who do not test for heavy metals. 

“Accordingly, provided this industry standard, Defendant would have had the knowledge that it could test for heavy metals, but it did not, and that it could safely remove these metals from its herbs and spices, but, again, did not,” the lawsuit argues. “Instead, Defendant chose to ignore the health of the consuming public in pursuit of profit.” 

Consumers would have been unwilling to buy the Spice Islands and Tone’s products at issue had they known the seasonings contained toxic heavy metals, the case says. 

The lawsuit looks to represent all persons in the United States who’ve bought Spice Islands’ sweet basil and ground ginger and Tone’s ground thyme. 

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