When the weather starts to turn and you start thinking more about curling up by a fire with a good book and something warm and spiced, you might fancy a Starbucks (SBUX) -) Pumpkin Spice Latte.
The drink has been officially available in stores and on the app since late August, and fans have been merrily ringing in the 20-year anniversary of the beloved beverage across the nation.
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After 20 years, though, Pumpkin Spice may not have the chokehold on the American public that it once had. Sales of pumpkin spice items so far are down for the second consecutive year.
The numbers are early, and a heat wave across many parts of the nation may have something to do with it. But early reporting by NielsenIQ indicates unit sales of pumpkin-flavored products (not Starbucks specifically) decreased 1.5% during the 52 weeks ended in July 2023. This would include most pumpkin spice products, from hand soap to cereal.
It's worth mentioning that Starbucks seems to be doing just fine — it's sold upward of 600 million Pumpkin Spice Lattes over the past 20 years and is showing no sign of slowing down.
But Starbucks isn't relying on cozy seasonal favorites to carry it through an entire fiscal year. Part of what makes the company so successful is its ability to iterate throughout the seasons, and no matter the weather, other popular drinks, such as the Brown Sugar Oat milk Shaken Espresso and the Mango Dragonfruit Refresher have delighted customers and coffee drinkers.
Starbucks in legal dispute over Refresher drinks
One of the challenges with creating, promoting, and succeeding with an original drink is producing it at scale without compromising taste or value.
Starbucks's popular Refresher drinks, for example, are mildly caffeinated iced drinks with varying fruity flavors. And as the name suggests, they can be pretty refreshing, with flavors like Strawberry Açaí Lemonade, Mango Dragonfruit, Pineapple Passionfruit and, of course, the viral Pink Drink, which contains flavors of strawberry, coconut and açaí.
As many of these drinks also have fruit in their names, one might also assume that they contain fruit.
Not so much, one lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims Starbucks can charge more for its Refreshers since customers believe they contain all the real fruit mentioned in their names.
The drinks in question are:
- Mango Dragonfruit
- Strawberry Açaí
- Pineapple Passionfruit
The lawsuit alleges that these drinks don't contain actual mango, açaí and passionfruit. They do, however contain pieces of dragonfruit, strawberry and pineapple.
The plaintiffs claim they therefore "paid a premium price" for a misleading product. A Grande (16-ounce) Mango Dragonfruit Refresher, for example, costs $4.45 before tax and contains the following ingredients:
ICE, MANGO DRAGONFRUIT REFRESHERS BASE [WATER, SUGARS (SUGAR, WHITE GRAPE JUICE CONCENTRATE), NATURAL FLAVORS, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL GREEN COFFEE FLAVOR, REBAUDISIDE-A], FREEZE DRIED DRAGONFRUIT PIECES.
"This class action seeks to challenge Defendant’s false and deceptive practices in the marketing and sale of a number of its Starbucks Refresher Products, which are marketed as fruit-based beverages available for sale at Starbucks’ brick and mortar locations," the class action lawsuit reads.
Starbucks, for its part, asked that nine of the 11 counts in the case be thrown out. "No reasonable consumer would be misled by the products’ names into thinking that the products contain the missing fruit," the company said.
U.S. District Judge John P. Cronan denied the request, however, ruling that "a significant portion of the general consuming public could be misled by the names of the at-issue beverages."
In a statement, Starbucks said, "The allegations in the complaint are inaccurate and without merit. We look forward to defending ourselves against these claims."
The lawsuit, which was filed in August 2022, is alleging a minimum of $5 million in damages.
