A Québec judge has dismissed a proposed class action lawsuit against Canada’s largest grocery chains, ruling that a CBC television segment is not sufficient legal grounds to pursue claims over the ingredients in black olives.Blacklock's Reporter says the case stemmed from a 2019 episode of L’épicerie, a French-language CBC cooking show, which explained how green olives can be turned black using ferrous gluconate, a Health Canada-approved additive. After watching the show, viewer Annie Langlais filed a claim against Walmart, Loblaw Inc., Sobeys, and other major grocers on behalf of every Québec consumer who bought black olives in the past eight years.Justice Sylvain Lussier, of Québec Provincial Court, rejected the case, writing, “The claim is based on a television program,” and said the application lacked the specific facts required to move forward as a class action. “The applicant must allege sufficient facts,” he said..Langlais told the court she was “alarmed” after learning olives were not “naturally ripened” and discussed it with friends. However, Lussier noted there was no evidence olives were chemically dyed. Industry testimony said ferrous gluconate is used to stabilize colour during shipping, not to alter the olives unnaturally.“The defendants are complying with the requirement imposed on them by the relevant authorities, namely Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency,” wrote the court. It concluded that the additive was not a “chemical treatment,” and there was nothing misleading or hidden in the production process..Supermarket lawyers explained that olives are naturally oxidized over time or stored with oxygen to ripen and blacken them, a method used for over a century. Product labels clearly listed ferrous gluconate, except for varieties such as Kalamata olives, which are not treated the same way.Lussier emphasized that the olives were not marketed as “naturally ripened or organic,” and the process had long been public knowledge.This is not the first time a viewer’s reaction to a CBC program has triggered legal action. In 2019, a class action based on a Marketplace report claiming Subway chicken had low actual chicken content was also thrown out. The court in that case said the program’s analysis was of “dubious probative value” and “did not hold water.”
