Kettle Brand just got sued over the avocado oil fraud study we covered

We wrote about the UC Davis avocado oil study a few weeks ago: 54 products tested, 89% failed an authenticity check, and a full pass/fail list of the specific chips, dressings, and mayos involved. At the time it was a lab finding. It is now also a lawsuit — and the newest one names a product that was sitting right in our own fail column.

The new one: Kettle Brand, filed four days ago

On August 18, 2026, a proposed class action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California: Heiland v. The Campbell's Company d/b/a Kettle Brand, case No. 1:26-cv-06598-EPG. The plaintiff, Diana Heiland, is represented by Bursor & Fisher, a firm that has filed dozens of food-labeling class actions.

The product named is Kettle Brand Avocado Oil Sea Salt with a Hint of Pink Peppercorn — one of the exact chips in the UC Davis dataset. The front of the bag shows an avocado and reads "made with avocado oil." The ingredient list names avocado oil as the only oil. The complaint alleges the chips are actually fried in a blend of canola, corn, soybean, and sunflower oil, and cites the July 2026 UC Davis study directly, down to its topline number: 26 of 28 avocado-oil chip samples failed authenticity testing.

The suit seeks to certify a California class and a nationwide class, a court order declaring the labeling unlawful, and restitution plus fees and costs. Campbell's has not yet filed a response.

This is not the first round of lawsuits over this exact claim

The 2026 study was actually the third UC Davis finding on avocado oil fraud — the first, in 2020, found 82% of bottled avocado oil was rancid or cut with other oils. That earlier finding already produced lawsuits that are still working their way through court, two years later, with no resolution:

• ALDI — Frost v. ALDI Inc., filed September 18, 2024 in New York federal court. The complaint alleges ALDI's Simply Nature "100% Pure Avocado Oil" is cut with oleic sunflower or safflower oil despite listing "refined avocado oil" as the sole ingredient.
• Walmart — Golikov v. Walmart Inc., filed September 24, 2024 in the Central District of California. The complaint alleges Walmart's Great Value avocado oil is "adulterated" and "impure," diluted with cheaper oil while priced as pure.

Neither case has a trial date, settlement, or public resolution as of this writing. Both are still in the proposed-class stage nearly two years after filing. That is the realistic timeline to keep in mind for the new Kettle Brand suit too — a filed complaint is the start of a legal process measured in years, not a verdict.

What the lawsuits actually argue

All three cases lean on the same two legal theories: state consumer-protection statutes (California's Unfair Competition Law and Consumers Legal Remedies Act, mainly) and common-law claims like negligent misrepresentation. The core argument in each is simple — a shopper paid a premium price for a product marketed as 100% avocado oil, the lab chemistry says otherwise, and the price difference between real avocado oil (roughly $4–$5 per pound) and the seed oils allegedly substituted in (often under $1.50 per pound) is the financial motive.

None of these suits allege the products are unsafe. Like the UC Davis study itself, this is a fraud claim, not a poison claim — the argument is that you paid for something you did not get, not that it will hurt you.

What actually changes for you right now

Not much, and that is the point of writing this follow-up. A filed class action is not a refund, a recall, or a reformulated product — the ALDI and Walmart suits prove that two years can pass with the product still on the shelf exactly as it was. If you want to know whether a specific bottle or bag in your kitchen was actually flagged, the lawsuit filing is not going to tell you faster than the underlying lab data already did.

That is what we built Tallow to surface. The UC Davis pass/fail results — including the Kettle Brand chip now named in a federal complaint — are linked to the affected products inside the app, so scanning the bag tells you what the lab found without waiting on a court docket. Eat clean, drink clean, and make the label prove it.

This article summarizes public court filings and academic research for consumer-information purposes. Allegations in a complaint are claims, not proven facts, and none of the lawsuits described here have been resolved by a court. Sources: ClassAction.org, Top Class Actions, ClaimDepot, and our own earlier coverage of the UC Davis authenticity study.