news-record.com

A consumer advocacy group is sour on Ocean Spray's labeling of a new product.

The National Consumers League sent a letter Tuesday to the US Food and Drug Administration, asking it to look into the labeling of Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.'s "choice" brand.

"Because this product is being sold as a “sweetened dried cranberry” for use in breakfast cereals, cereal bars, baked goods, and trail mixes, it has the potential to result in the mislabeling of many other food products on the market," according to the letter.

The group, according to the letter, described the cranberry content as "small" in not believing "that 'sweetened dried cranberries' is an appropriate common or usual name for this product."

“That is a problem for people who are buying a product they think has cranberries when in fact, it’s really no longer cranberry,’’ Sally Greenberg, the group’s executive director, told The Boston Globe.

Ocean Spray officials told the Globe they don’t sell the product to consumers. Instead, they sell to food manufacturers, who use it in their own products, which they also label.

The consumer group, according to the Globe, said its findings were based on a report it commissioned after receiving a tip from a whistle-blower.

From the Globe: "The analysis found that the “Choice’’ brand is made with cranberry skin mixed with sugar syrup, inverted beet sugar, and citric acid, according to the consumer group."