Kroger is paying $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit from officials in California who alleged the calorie counts on certain Kroger breads were incorrect.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said Monday that Kroger, which owns Food 4 Less, Foods Co. and Ralphs stores across California, mislabeled the calories on five of its Carbmaster brand bread products and thereby violated state false-advertising laws.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office worked with its counterparts in Santa Barbara County and Riverside County on the lawsuit and investigation.
Starting in 2021, the Kroger-owned stores began selling Carbmaster white bread, wheat bread, multi-seed bread and hot dog and hamburger buns. The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said the hamburger buns were listed as having 50 calories when they actually had 100, and that the white and wheat breads were listed at 30 calories but actually had 50 calories.
The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office said that while Kroger did fix the calorie listing on the FDA nutrition panel displayed on packages following complaints, the amount shown on consumer-facing parts of the packaging remained incorrect for months.
The grocery chain is also accused of keeping the erroneous calorie listings for the products online for nearly two years after the complaints, even after becoming aware of the investigation.
Kroger has not yet responded to a request for comment.
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