Driscoll's strawberries: the lab test, the lawsuit, and what the organic berries showed

A lab found 12 pesticides on conventional Driscoll's strawberries, 8 PFAS-linked, and none on organic. What the class action claims and what is still unproven.

Emily Harper

October 15, 2026

Strawberries are the fruit most Americans never think twice about. This year one of the biggest strawberry brands in the country got a class action lawsuit, a whistleblower complaint and a new CEO within a few months of a single lab test. Here is what that test found, what the lawsuit actually claims, and what nobody has proven yet.

The lab test that started it

In May 2026, the consumer site Mamavation sent two boxes of conventional Driscoll's strawberries, bought at a Southern California grocery store, to an EPA-certified laboratory. The sample was screened for more than 500 pesticides. The sample date was May 4, 2026 (Mamavation).

The conventional berries came back with 12 pesticide residues. Mamavation says eight of them are PFAS-linked, the group often called "forever chemicals" because they break down very slowly. Per the report, the levels were:

The matching Driscoll's organic strawberries came back non-detect across all 500+ pesticides tested (Mamavation).

Two caveats the report itself makes. It was a spot check, so it cannot say anything about other brands or other batches. And Mamavation states the detected levels were within the tolerances set by the US EPA, while saying some residues exceeded limits set in the European Union, Taiwan, Chile, Korea and Russia.

What the lawsuit claims

On June 26, 2026, consumers from Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts filed a 65-page class action complaint in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, according to local reporting (Pajaronian). It does not say the strawberries are illegal. It says Driscoll's marketed its conventional berries as meeting rigorous food safety and sustainability standards without telling shoppers about PFAS-related pesticide residues, which the plaintiffs call greenwashing. They want class certification, a disclosure requirement, restitution and damages. The suit does not challenge Driscoll's organic berries (Insurance Journal).

Driscoll's response: "We reject the allegations in this lawsuit and believe they are without merit." The company also says its berries are safe to eat and meet applicable regulatory standards (Claims Journal). After the Mamavation report came out in May, it said it and its independent growers operate in full compliance with federal, state and local pesticide rules, with oversight from the EPA and California's Department of Pesticide Regulation, and that growers undergo third-party audits (Fruitnet). The coverage we read says it did not directly address the specific test results.

There is also a second, separate case. Food Safety News reports that a former Driscoll's food safety and regulatory compliance manager filed a wrongful termination complaint in July, alleging he was fired after raising concerns about pesticide limits, and that executives told him to prioritize profits and create "plausible deniability." The same piece reports that CEO Soren Bjorn stepped down and was replaced by Brie Reiter Smith (Food Safety News). Those are allegations in a complaint, not findings, and the article does not say why the CEO left.

How worried should you be?

Honest answer: the science here is contested, and both sides have a point.

• Within the legal limit is not the same as nothing. The EPA sets tolerances for each pesticide residue, and the Mamavation report says these results were under them. Critics say tolerances do not capture lifetime exposure to a mix of residues across a whole diet, and that the review process leans on companies' own safety data (FoodPrint).
• The dose matters. FoodPrint cites an Unbiased Science estimate that you would have to eat about 123 pounds of strawberries a day to reach the EPA's safety threshold for indoxacarb, one of the eight. It also notes that whether fluorinated pesticides should be called "PFAS" is debated, and that experts think they may be less hazardous than old-school PFAS such as PFOA and PFOS.
• Strawberries are a known repeat offender. The Environmental Working Group ranked strawberries second on its 2025 Dirty Dozen list, after spinach, using USDA test data (Straight Arrow News). That is a conventional-farming pattern, not a single-brand story.

Where this leaves it: one lab test of one store's berries, a lawsuit that has not been decided, and a company that denies wrongdoing. The one part that is not in dispute is the contrast inside the same test. Same brand, same method, and the organic berries showed no pesticides at all.

The other four companies in the video, updated

The Instagram video that prompted this post listed five companies sued over chemicals. Driscoll's is the one we had not covered. The others have moved:

• Johnson & Johnson (talc). On July 28, 2026 J&J agreed to pay at least $5.5 billion to resolve about 76,000 ovarian cancer talc lawsuits. It needs lead plaintiff firms representing at least 95% of claims to sign on, it does not cover future claims, and J&J says its talc is safe and asbestos-free (Bloomberg Law).
• La Roche-Posay (Effaclar Duo). In March 2025 L'Oreal recalled all US lots of the acne treatment after benzene was found in one lot. Benzoyl peroxide can break down into benzene under some conditions. The FDA said the cancer risk from these products is very low (Fortune).
• CeraVe and Neutrogena. We went through the benzene claims, the recalls and the disputed lab numbers in our fact check of the talc, sunscreen and acne cream cases.

What to do at the store

1. If you want to cut pesticide residue, buy organic strawberries. It is the one choice backed by the data above. Mamavation and FoodPrint both point the same way.
2. Do not assume washing solves it. Neither source we read offers rinsing as a fix for this, and FoodPrint's guidance is to buy certified organic when you can.
3. If organic is out of budget, strawberries are a sensible place to spend on it. They are the fruit this test and the Dirty Dozen list keep pointing to.

Check your strawberries with Tallow

This is exactly the situation Tallow was built for. A news cycle about "forever chemical pesticides" does not help you at the shelf, but a lab result for the product in your hand does.

Tallow's entry for Driscoll's Fresh Strawberries lists the lab-measured residues, including 13 detected lines such as fludioxonil at 60 ppb and flonicamid at 32 ppb, and the product scores 13 out of 100. The Driscoll's Organic Strawberries entry shows every one of those residues as not detected and scores 100. Scan the barcode in the app and you see the same breakdown, with healthier swaps from the same aisle.

Figures in this post come from the Mamavation report, court coverage, company statements and the news sources linked above, current as of October 15, 2026. Tallow scores are as shown on tallow.app on that date. The lawsuits described are allegations and have not been decided. This is not medical or legal advice.