The Supreme Court of the State of California yesterday issued a decision in the Farm Raised Salmon Cases (under the umbrella listing S147171), overturning a California Court of Appeal ruling.  California citizens sued various grocery stores alleging the stores violated California’s Sherman Law labeling requirements by selling artificially colored farmed salmon without labeling it as “color added” as required by law.

Attorney Kevin Golden of the Center for Food Safety (which filed a Friend of the Court brief in this case) said, “We applaud the California Supreme Court’s ruling.  At issue is whether the people of California have the right to know what’s in their food.  California citizens’ right to enforce California food safety law, where the federal government is failing to do its job, has been vindicated.”

The suits - filed against several California grocery chains - were most recently dismissed by the California Court of Appeal, which ruled that federal labeling law preempts citizen enforcement of equivalent California state laws aimed at protecting human health and safety.  The California Supreme Court’s ruling concluded that the lower courts erred in taking away the citizens’ right to enforce California’s crucial food safety law.

The suit focused on two chemical dyes applied to farmed salmon sold in supermarkets (without the pink dyes, the farmed fish would have appeared grey in color).  The artificial dyes, canthaxanthin and astaxanthin, pose significant health risks.  These dyes have been linked to several human health problems, including impaired vision and retinal damage, cancer, and hyperactivity in young children.

“This ruling represents a significant win for consumers,” continued Golden.  “It increases accountability in the food industry to the people of the state, and it empowers individual consumers to demand accurate and honest labeling on the food they feed their families.  The California Supreme Court has affirmed the consumers’ right to know what’s in their food.”

View the Ruling