LYNN MOORE, SHANQUE KING, and JEFFREY AKWEI v. Trader Joe’s Company

FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
LYNN M OORE, S HANQUE KING, and
J EFFREY AKWEI,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
TRADER J OE’S C OMPANY ,
Defendant-Appellee.
No. 19-16618
D.C. No.
4:18-cv-04118-
KAW
OPINION
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Kandis Westmore, Magistrate Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 15, 2020
San Francisco, California
Filed July 15, 2021
Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw, Daniel P. Collins, Circuit
Judges, and Richard K. Eaton,* Judge.
Opinion by Judge Wardlaw
* Richard K. Eaton, Judge of the United States Court of International
Trade, sitting by designation.

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SUMMARY**
Product Labeling
The panel affirmed the district court’s Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(6) dismissal of a putative consumer class action
alleging that Trader Joe’s Company misleadingly labeled its
store brand honey as “100% New Zealand Manuka Honey.”
The panel held that Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey labeling
would not mislead a reasonable consumer as a matter of law.
By the Food and Drug Administration’s own definition,
Manuka honey is a honey whose “chief floral source” is the
Manuka flower. Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey met this
standard. The panel agreed with the district court’s
conclusion that Trader Joe’s label was accurate because
there was no dispute that all of the honey involved was
technically manuka honey, albeit with varying pollen counts.
Even though Trader Joe’s front label was accurate under
the FDA’s guidelines, plaintiffs maintained that “100% New
Zealand Manuka Honey” could mislead consumers into
thinking that the honey was 100% derived from Manuka
flower nectar. The panel held that a reasonable consumer
would be dissuaded from this unreasonable interpretation by
three key contextual inferences from the product itself:
(1) the impossibility of making a honey that is 100% derived
from one floral source; (2) the low price of Trader Joe’s
Manuka Honey, and (3) the presence of the “10+” on the
label.
** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It
has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 3
The panel held that the district court also properly held
that Trader Joe’s representation of “Manuka Honey” as the
sole ingredient on its ingredient statement was not
misleading as a matter of law.
COUNSEL
C. K. Lee (argued), Lee Litigation Group PLLC, New York,
New York; David Alan Makman, Law Offices of David A.
Makman, Redwood City, California; for Plaintiffs-
Appellants.
Dawn Sestito (argued) and Collins Kilgore, O’Melveny &
Myers LLP, Los Angeles, California, for Defendant-
Appellee.
OPINION
WARDLAW, Circuit Judge:
The parties find themselves in a sticky situation. Trader
Joe’s Company (“Trader Joe’s”) markets its store brand
Manuka honey as “100% New Zealand Manuka Honey” or
“New Zealand Manuka Honey,” but Plaintiffs, on behalf of
a putative class, claim that because Trader Joe’s Manuka
Honey actually consists of only between 57.3% and 62.6%
honey derived from Manuka flower nectar, Trader Joe’s
engaged in “false, misleading, and deceptive marketing” of
its Manuka honey. Stung by these accusations, Trader Joe’s
counters that its labeling is consistent with all applicable
Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) guidelines, which
permit labeling honey by its “chief floral source” and with
which Trader Joe’s contends its Manuka honey plainly

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complies, as Plaintiffs’ own tests reveal. Indeed, these
guidelines account for the fact that busy bees cannot be
prevented from foraging on different types of flowers,
despite their keepers’ best efforts. As a result, it is
impossible for bees to produce honey that is 100% derived
from the Manuka flower. Trader Joe’s therefore moved to
dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint, arguing its Manuka Honey
label is accurate, i.e., its product is 100% honey whose chief
floral source is Manuka, and that no reasonable consumer
would believe that it was marketing a product that is
impossible to create. The district court agreed and dismissed
the action without leave to amend.
Because we conclude that Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey
labeling would not mislead a reasonable consumer, we
affirm.
I.
Honey is a sweet and syrupy food product that bees
produce from the nectar of plants that they visit, which is
then stored in honeycombs. See U.S. Food and Drug
Admin., Proper Labeling of Honey and Honey Products:
Guidance for Industry (2018) (the “Honey Guidelines”);
Honey, Encyclopedia Britannica.1 While the two are often
linked, honey is not made from pollen, but, as here, pollen
counts can provide a useful estimation of the underlying
floral sources for a particular honey.2 Bees will often forage
on different flowering plants, but the FDA permits labeling
honey, which is “a single-ingredient food,” with “the name
1 https://tinyurl.com/nh8vp2ah (last visited June 3, 2021).
2 Bruce Boynton, National Honey Board: Honey Is Made from
Nectar, Not Pollen, Food Safety News (Apr. 23, 2012),
https://tinyurl.com/3x67v4d9 (last visited June 3, 2021).

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 5
of the plant or blossom if [the manufacturer] or the honey
producer has information to support the conclusion that the
plant or blossom designated on the label is the chief floral
source of the honey.” Honey Guidelines at 5 (citing FDA
Compliance Policy Guide § 515.300). For example, the
Honey Guidelines specify that “Orange Blossom Honey” is
an acceptable name for honey if its producer has reason to
believe that Orange Blossoms are the “chief floral source”
of the honey. Id.
“Manuka Honey” is a subset of honey whose chief floral
source is the flowers of the Manuka bush, a plant native to
Australia and New Zealand. Scientific researchers have
found that Manuka honey contains an organic compound,
methylglyoxal, which is believed to have antibacterial
properties and significant health benefits, particularly when
applied topically. Specifically, Manuka honey’s
“antibacterial potency” gives it significant “efficacy as
dressing for wounds, burns, skin ulcers and in reducing
inflammation.” As a result of Manuka honey’s beneficial
qualities and the geographic barriers to its widespread
production, the product is in high demand and low supply,
resulting in a price far in excess of other honeys.
In an effort to regulate and communicate the
concentration of Manuka in Manuka Honey products sold to
consumers, Manuka honey producers have created a scale to
grade the purity of Manuka honey called the Unique Manuka
Factor (“UMF”) grading system. The UMF system grades
honey on a scale of 5+ to 26+ based on the concentration of
methylglyoxal that is itself related to the concentration of
honey derived from Manuka flower nectar. Thus, among
Manuka honeys, higher concentrations of honey derived
specifically from Manuka flower nectar, i.e., higher
concentrations of methylglyoxal and higher UMF grades,

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assertedly correlate directly with greater health benefits, and,
accordingly, a higher price than other, lower-concentration
Manuka honeys. For example, a bottle of Manuka honey
that is 92% derived from Manuka flower nectar, as estimated
by pollen content, costs approximately $266, or $21.55 per
ounce.
Trader Joe’s primarily sells grocery products, among
them its own brand of Manuka Honey. Trader Joe’s branded
Manuka Honey is labeled with a UMF grade of 10+,3 a
relatively low grade, and sells for the comparatively low
price of $13.99 per jar, or $1.59 per ounce. Some jars of
Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey are labeled as “100% New
Zealand Manuka Honey” while others are simply labeled
“New Zealand Manuka Honey.”
3 Although Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey is labeled with a “10+”
grade that it received through testing, the labels at issue do not display
the official UMF logo. The UMF logo is a trademark that must be
purchased from the UMF, and Trader Joe’s declined to purchase it.

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 7
The ingredient statement, however, is the same across all jars
of Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey, and lists Manuka honey as
the sole ingredient.
Lynn Moore, Jeffrey Akwei, and Shanque King
(“Plaintiffs”), allege that they were misled by the product’s
label when they purchased Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey. In
July 2018, Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit against Trader Joe’s
on behalf of a putative class of all United States Trader Joe’s
consumers in the District Court for the Northern District of
California, claiming that Trader Joe’s engaged in deceptive
marketing practices in violation of a variety of state

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consumer protection laws.4 All three plaintiffs claim they
were denied the benefit of their bargain because they paid a
premium price for Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey that they
would not have paid but for the label’s allegedly misleading
representations.5
Specifically, Moore claims to have been misled by the
label’s statement that the product was “100% New Zealand
Manuka Honey” while Akwei and King—who purchased
bottles without the “100%” label—claim to have been
misled by the ingredient list, which lists “Manuka Honey” as
the sole ingredient. Plaintiffs claim that both labeling
choices were misrepresentations based on their independent
testing, which revealed that only between 57.3% and 62.6%
of the honey came from Manuka flower nectar, as estimated
by pollen content, with the remainder coming from other
floral sources. Plaintiffs allege that the label and ingredient
list created the false impression that Trader Joe’s Manuka
4 Specifically, Plaintiffs brought claims under California’s
Consumer Legal Remedies Act, CAL . C IV. CODE § 1750, et seq.;
California’s Unfair Competition Law, CAL . BUS. & PROF. CODE § 17200,
et seq.; California’s False Advertising Law, CAL . BUS. & PROF. CODE
§ 17500, et seq.; New York’s Deceptive Acts and Practices Act, N.Y.
G EN. BUS. L AW § 349, et seq.; New York’s False Advertising Law, N.Y.
G EN. BUS. L AW § 350, et seq.; North Carolina’s Unfair and Deceptive
Practices Act, N.C. G EN. STAT . § 75-1.1, et seq; North Carolina’s
Fraudulent and Deceptive Advertising Law, N.C. G EN. STAT . § 14-117,
et seq.; Common Law Fraud; and Breach of Express Warranties.
5 In December of 2018, Plaintiffs amended their class action
complaint to include an allegation that Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey had
been adulterated in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 342(b) and California’s
Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law, CAL . H EALTH & SAFETY CODE
§ 110585, by amalgamating honey from different hives, thereby mixing
more valuable, high-concentration Manuka honey with less valuable,
lower-concentration Manuka honey.

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 9
Honey contained a far higher percentage of honey derived
from Manuka flower nectar.
In June of 2019, the district court granted Trader Joe’s
motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint for failure to state a
claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). First,
the district court concluded that, in light of Plaintiffs’
clarification at the hearing that their allegations of
“adulteration” rested on bees visiting different floral sources
and not on the manufacturer’s mixing of honey from
different floral sources, Plaintiffs had failed to allege
adulteration under 21 U.S.C. § 342(b). Second, for the
mislabeling claims, the district court concluded that Trader
Joe’s representations were not misleading to a reasonable
consumer as a matter of law, and, alternatively, that
Plaintiffs’ state law causes of actions are preempted by the
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”), as
amended by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act
(“NLEA”).
II.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 over this
timely6 appeal from a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of the
6 The district court did not abuse its discretion in granting Plaintiffs’
motion to extend the time to file the notice of appeal in this case. Sitting
en banc in Pincay v. Andrews, 389 F.3d 853, 860 (9th Cir. 2004), we
refused to adopt a per se rule that attorney or paralegal carelessness was
tantamount to inexcusable neglect for purposes of a motion to extend a
deadline to appeal. Rather, we held that this determination was properly
left to the sound discretion of the district court judge. Id. at 860. Here,
the district court carefully considered each of the four Pioneer factors
required by our precedent and permissibly concluded that the modest
delay, which apparently resulted from a paralegal’s error in carrying out
the attorney’s instructions, was not prejudicial and did not involve bad

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Plaintiffs’ case. We review de novo a district court’s
dismissal of a case under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a
claim. Kroessler v. CVS Health Corp., 977 F.3d 803, 807
(9th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). We also review de novo
a district court’s conclusion that federal law preempts state
law claims. Id. (citation omitted). We construe all factual
allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. Id.
(citation omitted). Dismissal of a complaint under Rule
12(b)(6) is appropriate when the complaint fails to state
sufficient facts creating a plausible claim to relief. Id. (citing
Weber v. Dep’t of Veterans Aff., 521 F.3d 1061, 1065 (9th
Cir. 2008)).
III.
We address one primary issue on appeal: whether the
district court erred in holding that Trader Joe’s
representations on its label and ingredient statement were not
misleading as a matter of law. Because we conclude Trader
Joe’s representations are not misleading to a reasonable
consumer as a matter of law, we do not reach whether
Plaintiffs’ claims are also preempted by federal labeling
laws.7
faith. See Pioneer Inv. Serv.’s Co. v. Brunswick Assoc. Ltd. P’ship,
507 U.S. 380, 395 (1993); see also Pincay, 389 F.3d at 855–56.
7 Plaintiffs did not raise their adulteration, breach of warranty, or
common law fraud claims in either their opening or reply briefs on
appeal. Any arguments regarding those claims are therefore waived.
Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. Chino Valley Unif. Sch. Dist.,
896 F.3d 1132, 1152 (9th Cir. 2018) (“It is well established that an
appellant’s failure to argue an issue in the opening brief, much less on
appeal more generally, waives that issue . . . .”).

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 11
A.
The district court did not err in concluding that Trader
Joe’s Manuka Honey label, which advertised its contents as
“100% New Zealand Manuka Honey,” was not misleading
to a reasonable consumer as a matter of law.
The district court based much of its decision on the
FDA’s Honey Guidelines. The FDCA and its implementing
regulations set the standards for “the proper labeling of
honey and honey products,” Honey Guidelines at 3, and,
although the Honey Guidelines are not themselves binding,
compliance with them constitutes compliance with the
misbranding provisions of the FDCA. See 21 U.S.C.
§§ 342–43. The Honey Guidelines provide that honey, as a
single-ingredient food, must be labeled “‘honey,’ which is
its common or usual name.” Honey Guidelines at 5. The
Guidelines also permit honey to be labeled with the name of
a plant or blossom if the producer has reason to believe the
plant or blossom designated on the label is the chief floral
source of the honey. See id. While the FDA does not
specifically define “chief floral source,” we interpret it to
mean that the principal source of the honey is a single floral
source.8 Thus, by the FDA’s own definition, Manuka honey
is a honey whose “chief floral source” is the Manuka flower.
Id.
Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey meets this standard. As
Plaintiffs’ own tests reveal, Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey is
derived from between 57.3–62.6% Manuka flower nectar (as
estimated by pollen count); therefore the honey’s “chief
8 See CHIEF, Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,
https://tinyurl.com/4p9jhby4 (last accessed June 6, 2021) (defining
“chief” as “of greatest importance or influence”).

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floral source” is the Manuka flower. After foraging for
pollen from different flowering plants, bees do not segregate
the nectar from different floral sources before producing
honey. Therefore, as Plaintiffs conceded, there is no such
thing as “pure” batches of honey made from only Manuka
flower nectar and other “pure” batches of honey made from
other different floral sources. It is all simply honey that a
particular hive creates from all of the nectar its bees have
foraged. Here, Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey is chiefly
derived from Manuka flower nectar, and Manuka is
therefore the chief floral source for all of the product’s honey
under the FDA’s definition, even if some of it is derived
from nectar from other floral sources. Thus, the district court
was plainly correct in concluding that Trader Joe’s label was
accurate because “there is no dispute that all of the honey
involved is technically manuka honey, albeit with varying
pollen counts.”
Even though Trader Joe’s front label is accurate under
the FDA’s guidelines, Plaintiffs maintain that “100% New
Zealand Manuka Honey” could nonetheless mislead
consumers into thinking that the honey was “100%” derived
from Manuka flower nectar. Under the consumer protection
laws of California, New York, and North Carolina, the states
in which Plaintiffs reside, claims based on deceptive or
misleading marketing must demonstrate that a “reasonable
consumer” is likely to be misled by the representation. See
Ebner v. Fresh Inc., 838 F.3d 958, 965 (9th Cir. 2016)
(holding that “claims under the California consumer
protection statutes are governed by the ‘reasonable
consumer’ test” (citation omitted)); Solum v. CertainTeed
Corp., 2015 WL 6505195 at *5 (E.D.N.C. Oct. 27, 2015)
(“Under North Carolina law, reliance upon a representation
is reasonable only when the recipient of the representation
uses reasonable care to ascertain the truth of that

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 13
representation.” (cleaned up and citation omitted)); Shapiro
v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 212 F.3d 121, 126 (2d Cir. 2000)
(noting that “[u]nder New York law, a deceptive act or
practice . . . has been defined as a representation or omission
‘likely to mislead a reasonable consumer acting reasonably
under the circumstances’” (citation omitted)). This is not a
negligible burden. To meet this standard, Plaintiffs must
demonstrate “more than a mere possibility that [the seller’s]
label might conceivably be misunderstood by some few
consumers viewing it in an unreasonable manner . . .
[r]ather, the reasonable consumer standard requires a
probability that a significant portion of the general
consuming public or of targeted consumers, acting
reasonably in the circumstances, could be misled.” See
Ebner, 838 F.3d at 965 (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). Indeed, a plaintiff’s unreasonable assumptions
about a product’s label will not suffice. See Becerra v. Dr.
Pepper/Seven Up., Inc., 945 F.3d 1225, 1229–30 (9th Cir.
2019).
As noted by the district court, there is some ambiguity as
to what “100%” means in the phrase, “100% New Zealand
Manuka Honey.” In that context, 100% could be a claim that
the product was 100% Manuka honey, that its contents were
100% derived from the Manuka flower, or even that 100%
of the honey was from New Zealand. To analyze whether
this ambiguity could mislead a reasonable consumer, the
district court adopted the reasoning of In re 100% Grated
Parmesan Cheese Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., in which
the court considered other information readily available to
the consumer that could easily resolve the alleged ambiguity.
275 F. Supp. 3d 910, 926 (N.D. Ill. 2017). Although the
Seventh Circuit ultimately reversed 100% Grated Parmesan
Cheese’s “ambiguity rule for front-label claims” in Bell v.
Publix Super Markets Inc., 982 F.3d 468 (7th Cir. 2020),

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Bell left undisturbed “the general principle that deceptive
advertising claims should take into account all the
information available to consumers and the context in which
that information is provided and used.” Id. at 477 (first
citing Davis v. G.N. Mortg. Corp., 396 F.3d 869, 884 (7th
Cir. 2005); Beardsall v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., 953 F.3d 969,
977−78 (7th Cir. 2020); then Fink v. Time Warner Cable,
714 F.3d 739, 742 (2d Cir. 2013); and then Freeman v. Time,
Inc., 68 F.3d 285, 289−90 (9th Cir. 1995)). The district court
here concluded that, as a matter of law, other available
information about Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey would
quickly dissuade a reasonable consumer from the belief that
Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey was derived from 100%
Manuka flower nectar. We agree.
Here, reasonable consumers would necessarily require
more information before they could reasonably conclude
Trader Joe’s label promised a honey that was 100% derived
from a single, floral source. And, although Trader Joe’s
ingredient label listed “Manuka Honey” as the only
ingredient, which Plaintiffs argue “reinforc[es] the deception
created by the front label,” information available to a
consumer is not limited to the physical label and may involve
contextual inferences regarding the product itself and its
packaging. See Bell, 982 F.3d at 476 (“[T]he context of the
entire packaging is relevant.”); Becerra, 945 F.3d at 1229
(holding that a reasonable consumer would understand the
word “diet” on a soda label in context to make a comparative
claim only about the product’s caloric content, not to make
a claim that the soda promotes weight loss generally).
While we agree with the Seventh Circuit that
“[d]eceptive advertisements often intentionally use
ambiguity to mislead consumers while maintaining some
level of deniability about the intended meaning[,]” it also

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 15
remains the case that “where plaintiffs base deceptive
advertising claims on unreasonable or fanciful
interpretations of labels or other advertising, dismissal on the
pleadings may well be justified.” Bell, 982 F.3d at 477. This
case is an example of the latter, but we begin with a threshold
distinction between the product at issue here and the 100%
Grated Parmesan Cheese product. The Seventh Circuit in
Bell was justifiably concerned about the possible confusion
created by manufacturers who claim (in an arguably
ambiguous fashion) that the product is 100% cheese, despite
their knowledge of the fact that they had added non-cheese
ingredients to produce the product, and who then try to retain
some “level of deniability” by clarifying the front-label
claim with back-label disclosures. Id. The sort of conduct
by the manufacturer in 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese to
undermine the front-label claim is simply not present here.
Bees make the Manuka honey, without input from Trader
Joe’s or any other manufacturer. Trader Joe’s does not insert
any additional ingredients to produce the product or mix
Manuka honey with other, non-Manuka honeys to dilute it,
as Plaintiffs acknowledge. The potential confusion
justifying the Seventh Circuit’s concern is simply not present
in the same way for Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey label.
Even setting that distinction aside, a reasonable
consumer would be quickly dissuaded from Plaintiffs’
“unreasonable or fanciful” interpretation of “100% New
Zealand Manuka Honey” based on three key contextual
inferences from the product itself: (1) the impossibility of
making a honey that is 100% derived from one floral source,
(2) the low price of Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey, and (3) the
presence of the “10+” on the label, all of which is readily
available to anyone browsing the aisles of Trader Joe’s.

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First and foremost, given the foraging nature of bees, a
reasonable honey consumer would know that it is impossible
to produce honey that is derived exclusively from a single
floral source. Although a reasonable consumer might not be
an expert in honey production or beekeeping, consumers
would generally know that it is impossible to exercise
complete control over where bees forage down to each
specific flower or plant. See Honey, Encyclopedia
Britannica.9 Unlike other domesticated animals, bees cannot
be commanded or directed, as any beekeeper worth his salt
would readily admit. As explained by one of the foremost
producers of New Zealand Manuka Honey, Bees and Trees,
“it’s still impossible to get 100% pure Manuka Honey out of
a hive because there will inevitably be some non-Manuka
nectar that the bees get into . . . we can’t tell [bees] to only
work the Manuka flowers.” Manuka Honey You Can Trust
– Satisfaction Guaranteed, Bees & Trees.10 Plaintiffs’
interpretation of Trader Joe’s label is similar to the plaintiffs
who claimed that the colorful cereals advertised on certain
boxes of “Froot Loops” and “Cap’n Crunch” promised real
fruit content, which courts in this circuit properly rejected
outright. See Werbel ex rel. v. Pepsico, Inc., 2010 WL
2673860, at *6 (N.D. Cal. July 2, 2010); McKinnis v.
Kellogg USA, 2007 WL 4766060, at *6 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 19,
2007). A reasonable consumer would not understand Trader
Joe’s label here as promising something that is impossible to
find. See, e.g., Red v. Kraft Foods, Inc, 2012 WL 5504011
at *3 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 25, 2012) (dismissing deceptive
marketing claim based on theory that box of crackers stated
it was made with vegetables, because “a reasonable
9 https://tinyurl.com/nh8vp2ah (last visited Apr. 2, 2021).
10 https://tinyurl.com/74urzpse (last visited Apr. 2, 2021).

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 17
consumer will be familiar with the fact of life that a cracker
is not composed of primarily fresh vegetables”).
Notably, the Seventh Circuit in Bell was careful to
“stress[] that consumers are likely to exhibit a low degree of
care when purchasing low-priced, everyday items,”
including “low-cost groceries” like shelf-stable parmesan
cheese. 982 F.3d at 479. Consumers of Manuka honey, a
niche, specialty product,11 are undoubtedly more likely to
exhibit a higher standard of care than “a parent walking
down the dairy aisle in a grocery store, possibly with a child
or two in tow,” who is “not likely to study with great
diligence the contents of a complicated product package.”
Danone, US, LLC v. Chobani, LLC, 362 F. Supp. 3d 109,
123 (S.D.N.Y. 2019). Rather, an average consumer of
Manuka honey would likely know more than most about the
production of the product and the impossibility of a honey
that is 100% derived from Manuka flower nectar.
Regardless, given the sheer implausibility of Plaintiffs’
alleged interpretation, a consumer of any level of
sophistication could not reasonably interpret Trader Joe’s
label as Plaintiffs assert. See Gitson v. Trader Joe’s Co., No.
13-CV-01333-VC, 2015 WL 9121232, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Dec.
1, 2015) (“The reasonable consumer (indeed, even the least
11 Manuka honey’s effete reputation is sufficiently noteworthy that
an episode of the popular television show Broad City even parodied the
perceived high-brow nature of the product. In the episode, one of the
main characters purchases Manuka honey at a New York Whole Foods,
but only because she is still under the influence of medication she took
after she had her wisdom teeth removed. Her inner voice (personified as
a giant stuffed animal) even sarcastically describes the jar of Manuka
honey as “so reasonably priced” in a grocery trip eventually totaling
$1,487.50. See Cory Stieg, Can Manuka Honey Solve All Your
Problems?, Refinery29 (Aug. 20, 2018), https://tinyurl.com/2jyc9kdx
(last visited June 3, 2021) (linking to a clip of the scene in question).

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sophisticated consumer) does not think soymilk comes from
a cow.”). Plaintiffs’ alleged assumption is not just
“unreasonable” or “fanciful.” It is implausible.
Second, the inexpensive cost of Trader Joe’s Manuka
Honey would signal to a reasonable consumer that the
product has a relatively lower concentration of honey
derived from Manuka flower nectar. Trader Joe’s Manuka
Honey costs just $13.99 per jar ($1.59 per ounce) while a jar
of approximately 92% honey derived from Manuka flower
nectar, as estimated by pollen count, costs around $266
($21.55 per ounce). As Plaintiffs’ complaint alleges, the
reasonable consumer of Manuka honey, a specialty product,
“know[s] that the concentration of manuka [nectar, as
measured by pollen,] as opposed to other honey pollens can
vary significantly from brand to brand depending on what
measures have been taken to maximize manuka purity.”
“[T]hey attach importance to representations that
communicate a higher purity level.” A reasonable consumer
in the market for Manuka honey, who is well aware of the
varying concentrations of Manuka in different Manuka
honeys, would thus not reasonably expect a jar of honey that
is “100%” derived from Manuka to cost only $13.99. See,
e.g., Jessani v. Monini N.A., Inc., 744 Fed App’x. 18, 19 (2d
Cir. 2018) (noting that no reasonable consumer would
believe a bottle of truffle flavored olive oil contained real
truffles, “the most expensive food in the world,” in part
because of its inexpensive price).
Third, Trader Joe’s label includes a sticker saying “10+,”
which represents the honey’s rating on the UMF scale.
While there are no other details on the jar about what “10+”
means, the presence of this rating on the label puts a
reasonable consumer on notice that it must represent
something about the product. Reasonable consumers of

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 19
Manuka honey would routinely encounter such ratings and
would likely have some knowledge about them. The UMF
grading scale reflects a Manuka honey product’s
concentration of honey derived from Manuka flower nectar
and ranges from 5+ to 26+, and ratings are commonly
displayed on Manuka honey products. Thus, even a
consumer with cursory knowledge of the UMF scale would
know Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey was decidedly on the
lower end of the “purity” scale.
For these reasons, a reasonable consumer could not be
left with the conclusion that “100% New Zealand Manuka
Honey” represents a claim that the product consists solely of
honey derived from Manuka. Rather, a reasonable consumer
would be left only with the conclusion that “100% New
Zealand Manuka Honey” means that it is 100% honey whose
chief floral source is the Manuka plant, which is an accurate
statement, as Plaintiffs themselves concede. In Plaintiffs’
words, “[t]he Product is ‘100% Manuka Honey’ only in the
attenuated legalistic sense that the FDA Honey Guidance
may authorize Trader Joe’s to market each and every
tablespoon of honey in the product as ‘Manuka Honey’
notwithstanding that 40% of the honey is non-manuka.”
Thus, the district court did not err in dismissing
Plaintiffs’ claims regarding the front label. See Ebner,
838 F.3d at 966.
B.
The district court also properly held that Trader Joe’s
representation of “Manuka Honey” as the sole ingredient on
its ingredient statement was not misleading as a matter of
law.

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20 M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S
Plaintiffs claim that the ingredient statement on Trader
Joe’s Manuka Honey is misleading because “[l]isting
manuka honey as the sole ingredient would create ‘an
erroneous impression’ that more manuka is present in the
Product than is actually the case.” However, under the
FDA’s Honey Guidelines, “in the statement of ingredients,
the label must follow the requirements set forth in 21 C.F.R.
[§] 101.4,” and “[t]he labeling must include the common or
usual name of each ingredient in the ingredient statement.”
Honey Guidelines at 6; see also 21 C.F.R. § 101.4
(“Ingredients required to be declared on the label or labeling
of a food . . . shall be listed by common or usual name in
descending order of predominance by weight . . . .”).
“Manuka honey” is the “common or usual name” for honey
whose chief floral source is the Manuka bush, which
Plaintiffs’ testing reveals to be true for Trader Joe’s Manuka
Honey. 21 C.F.R. § 101.4. The product includes no
ingredients other than this honey. Thus, under relevant FDA
regulations, the sole ingredient in Trader Joe’s Manuka
Honey is “manuka honey,” and so its ingredient statement is
accurate.
Plaintiffs nonetheless argue that while “Manuka Honey”
may be permissible as a “common or usual name” for a label,
listing it as the sole ingredient may nevertheless mislead a
reasonable consumer because it creates a misleading
impression that the product contains a higher percentage of
honey derived from Manuka flower nectar than it actually
does. Plaintiffs are correct that FDA regulations do require
that “[t]he common or usual name of a food shall include a
statement of the presence or absence of any characterizing
ingredient(s) or component(s)” that have a “material bearing
on price or consumer acceptance” or when the labeling
might “create an erroneous impression that such
ingredient(s) or component(s) is present.” 21 C.F.R.

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M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S 21
§ 102.5(c). Because the percentage of honey derived from
Manuka “has a material bearing on the price and consumer
acceptance of the Products,” Plaintiffs argue, Manuka
Honey “cannot be the common or usual name of Defendant’s
Product for purposes of the ingredient statement.”
Moreover, Trader Joe’s cannot reasonably be said to
have claimed in its ingredient statement that the percentage
of honey derived from Manuka flower nectar is 100%.
Reasonable consumers would understand that Trader Joe’s
listing Manuka honey as the sole ingredient merely
represents the accurate statement that Manuka honey is the
only ingredient, i.e., that there are no additives or other
honeys present in the product, not that it is exclusively
derived from Manuka. See Ebner, 838 F.3d at 966. Thus,
21 C.F.R. § 102.5(c) does not preclude Trader Joe’s from
listing Manuka honey as the sole ingredient.
Nonetheless, Plaintiffs argue that listing “‘Manuka
Honey’ in the ingredients statement” could still mislead
consumers into believing that “the product consists entirely
of manuka honey,” particularly when taken together with the
statement “100% New Zealand Manuka Honey” when
present on the front label. As we have concluded, Trader
Joe’s Manuka Honey entirely consists of Manuka honey, so
the ingredients statement does not “display any affirmative
misrepresentations” that would mislead a reasonable
consumer. Workman v. Plum, Inc., 141 F. Supp. 3d 1032,
1036 (N.D. Cal. 2015). Thus, the ingredients statement
simply confirms what the front label of Trader Joe’s Manuka
Honey accurately conveys, i.e., that the product in fact does
“100%” consist of honey whose chief floral source is
Manuka. Williams v. Gerber Products Co., 552 F.3d 934,
939–40 (9th Cir. 2008) (holding that “reasonable consumers

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22 M OORE V . TRADER J OE’S
expect that the ingredient list . . . confirms other
representations on the packaging”).
Accordingly, the district court did not err in holding that
Trader Joe’s properly listed Manuka honey as the sole
ingredient and that the ingredient statement is therefore not
misleading as a matter of law.
IV.
In sum, the district court properly dismissed this action
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) because
Trader Joe’s representations on the front label and the
ingredients statement of its Manuka Honey product are not
misleading to a reasonable consumer as a matter of law.
Plaintiffs have not alleged, and cannot allege, facts to state a
plausible claim that Trader Joe’s Manuka Honey is false,
deceptive, or misleading. Accordingly, we need not reach
the district court’s alternative holding that Plaintiffs’ claims
are also preempted by federal labeling laws.
AFFIRMED.

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