Metro

Greek yogurt companies trying to hide amount of sugar in products: suit

Trendy Greek yogurt companies are playing hide the sugar with consumers, a pair of federal lawsuits claim.

Barry Stoltz, of Westchester, and Allan Chang, of Queens, blasted yogurt giants Chobani and Fage for trying to hide the amount of sugar in their products — and even compare them unfavorable to Nestle fudge ice cream bars.

The men claim in their separate class action Brooklyn federal court suits that Chobani lists “evaporated cane juice” as its sweetening agent when the substance is actually just plain old sugar. Chobani containers do list sugar content in their nutritional panel but not in their ingredients.

“Defendants purposefully misrepresented and continue to misrepresent to consumers that their products contain ‘evaporated cane juice’ even though ‘evaporated cane juice’ is not ‘juice’ at all – it is nothing more than sugar dressed up to sound like a healthier sweetener,” the suit claims.

But a California judge tossed a similar case against Chobani last month on the evaporated cane juice controversy after ruling that the plaintiffs couldn’t prove that they bought the yogurt because of the false claim.

The suits argue that a Nestle fudge ice cream bar has 15 grams of sugar per serving while a “typical” Chobani cup has 16 grams of the sweet stuff.

Stoltzs and Chang knock both companies for splashing “0%” on the front of some of their yogurt products – without explicitly saying what the number represents.

“Defendants intend to create consumer confusion by causing purchaser to impute any meaning to the 0% that consumers wish, such as that the Products lack sugar, carbohydrates, calories, or any other content which a consumer may believe is unhealthy,” the suit states.

But Chobani has argued that a normal consumer would know that this refers to fat content.

Despite Chobani branding itself “America’s Top Greek Yogurt,” the suit grouses that “none of the products sold in the U.S. are made in Greece or made by Greek nationals.”

“Much like English muffins and French fries, our fans understand Greek Yogurt to be a product description about how we authentically make our yogurt and not about where we make our yogurt in Upstate New York and Idaho,” a Chobani rep told The Post in a statement. “We have proudly built Chobani on being truly authentic and totally transparent, and fully stand behind our products and our craft.”