Dine & Cook | Alternative food journalism

Sugar cane and sugar beet growers have upped the ante in their battle against the Corn Refiners Association-- the trade group that represents the high fructose corn syrup industry.

The farmers have amended their lawsuit against the CRA, alleging that the group is behind a conspiracy "designed to deceive the public about high fructose corn syrup."  The lawsuit argues that the CRA and several of its members, including some of the largest agribusinesses in the United States, conspired to engage in false advertising.  The suit alleges that senior agricultural executives worked together to rename high fructose corn syrup, corn sugar.  The complaint says the executives "organize[d] collectively in order to dominate and ... control" the ongoing marketing campaign to re brand high fructose corn syrup. 

Their suit also takes issue with the CRA's multi-million dollar national advertising campaign to brand high fructose corn syrup as a natural product equivalent to sugar produced from cane and beet plants.

The amended lawsuit comes a month after a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in favor of sugar farmers and producers, ruling that that the farmers demonstrated "a reasonable probability of success" in proving that the campaign's key claims were false.

The lawsuit claims high fructose corn syrup manufacturers have spent at least $50 million on a misleading multi-platform re-branding campaign.  The suit takes issue with the claim that high fructose corn syrup is natural and is indistinguishable from the sugar extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets.

"Let's be clear about what is at stake here. This litigation is about false advertising funded by CRA's biggest members," said Adam Fox of Squire Sanders, lead attorney for the sugar growers. "Sugar cane and beet farmers want the defendants to stop their false and misleading statements that harm consumers, harm the makers of real sugar and harm any dialogue based on the truth. This lawsuit seeks to put an end to the intentional deception."

The lawsuit was filed after the CRA asked the Food and Drug Administration to allow high fructose corn syrup to be called corn sugar on food and beverage ingredient labels.  Right now the label "corn sugar" is used for dextrose, a corn starch product that contains no fructose.