A man in California has sued T.W. Garner Food Company after he realized that his bottle of Texas Pete hot sauce contained hot sauce made not in Texas, as the name might suggest, but in North Carolina.
Phillip White filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California because, according to the complaint, “the geographic origin of a product matters to consumers, and a company is therefore prohibited from misrepresenting it.”
The complaint, which was filed on Sept. 12, appears below in its entirety, if you want a good laugh.
Texas Pete has been manufactured by T.W. Garner, headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, since its initial creation almost a century ago, according to the company’s website:
“‘So how is it that a tasty red pepper sauce made in North Carolina happens to be named “Texas Pete” anyway?’ Legend has it that, when Sam Garner and his three sons, Thad, Ralph and Harold, were trying to come up with a brand name for this spicy new sauce they had created, a marketing advisor suggested the name ‘Mexican Joe’ to connote the piquant flavor reminiscent of the favorite foods of our neighbors to the south. ‘Nope!’ said the patriarch of the Garner family. ‘It’s got to have an American name!’ Sam suggested they move across the border to Texas, which also had a reputation for spicy cuisine. Then he glanced at son Harold, whose nickname was ‘Pete’ and the Texas Pete cowboy was born.”
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But don’t try selling any of that history to White and his oh-so-serious legal team at the Clarkson Law Firm, P.C., who claim that Garner Food has “cheated its way to a market-leading position in the $3 billion-dollar [sic] hot-sauce industry at the expense of law-abiding competitors and consumers nationwide who desire authentic Texas hot sauce.”
The company instead sells “standard Louisiana-style hot sauces,” the complaint claims.
I’m sure there’s a difference between “authentic Texas hot sauce” and “standard Louisiana-style hot sauces.”
Is this a reasonable lawsuit?
I’m just as sure that the majority — and I mean the vast majority, which is a cliche I prefer to avoid in most cases but is appropriate here — the vast majority of law-abiding consumers couldn’t tell you what that difference is if it meant avoiding having the stuff poured into their eyes.
To prove their point, the complaint included a “true and correct” image of the hot sauce bottle — the front of the bottle, I should say.
Of course, they left out any mention of the back of the bottle, which clearly indicates where the stuff is made.
The complaint cites a local business publication as evidence that a belief in the hot sauce’s Texan origins is understandable: “With a name like Texas Pete, one would think the famed
hot sauce is manufactured in the Lone Star state,” the Triad Business Journal wrote in 2014.
The complaint does not, however, mention the very next sentence in that article: “But Texas Pete has been a purely Winston-Salem-made product since TW Garner Food Co. started making the sauce in the mid-1930s.”
So much for the big conspiracy.
I have to wonder if White and his attorneys believe that the Hyundai Tucson is manufactured in Arizona with parts sourced only from Arizona, or maybe the Chrysler Sebring in Florida from parts sourced only from the Sunshine State? Where is the Chevy Malibu made, Mr. White? The Kia Sedona?
Wait … what about all those Saturns manufactured by General Motors? You don’t think …?
Eh, you probably do. You’re probably a big Freddie Mercury fan too, right? Because his music’s so out of this world?
Look, here’s a true story from this world, the one occupied by (relatively) reasonable people: Last week, some friends came to my house for Mexican food. (Spoiler: None of it came from Mexico.) I spotted some Helados Mexico ice cream bars and thought they’d be fun to pick up for dessert.
I was right. They were well-received, in part because they were delicious. Even though they were made in Ontario, Canada. Their region of origin had no impact on our enjoyment of the product. Go figure.
Oh, by the way, you know how I know they came from Ontario? I read the label.
I’m not sure why you’d want to, but you can read White’s entire complaint here:
White v TW Garner Food Complaint by The Western Journal on Scribd
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