GREENSBORO, N.C. — We've all heard about the Texas Pete lawsuit by now and just this week a judge allowed the lawsuit to continue. Chances are you're thinking, 'How is it deceptive for a Winston-Salem company to call their sauce Texas Pete, especially when you can pick the bottle up, turn it around, and see it's not made in Texas?
Why is this lawsuit even a thing?
"These kinds of cases are a can't judge a book by its cover. The claim is that it is deceptive advertising, false and misleading and people buy it because of its name and therefore it has created a market share that is unjustly enriched because of its name," said Steven Friedland, Professor of Law, Elon University School of Law.
The plaintiff in this case claims the way Texas Pete is presented leads consumers to take it off the grocery store shelf and buy it solely because they're believing sauces from Texas are better and it gives an unfair advantage to Texas Pete over its competitors.
"This can be a significant case, the hot sauce industry is worth $1.5 billion dollars, so this is not insignificant, while it may not appear significant at first glance, this is serious stuff. There are laws in place to protect consumers from deceptive and misleading practices, whether this is one is the question," said Friedland.
This lawsuit could take years and it is a class action lawsuit which means it's on behalf of anyone who has ever bought the product. The plaintiff, Phillip White of California, wants the TW Garner company to change the Texas Pete name and marketing and give money back to consumers.
The history of Texas Pete is explained on the TW Garner website. The product and the name date back to 1929.