California Man Sues ‘Texas Pete’ Hot Sauce, Claims Sauce Isn’t Texan
A California man is not happy that the sauce he enjoys has nothing to do with the great state of Texas, and now he is suing the company behind 'Texas Pete' and pretty much claiming that he was tricked into buying the sauce because of a cowboy and a star, and of course, the name.
In his class action lawsuit against Texas Pete Hot Sauce, Phillip White, says he purchased the product from a grocery store in 2021 and he thought it was a real, authentic Texas product. According to NBCDFW, White says he never would have purchased the $3.00 product if he had known the truth. Instead of 'Texas Pete' being made in Texas, it's bottled in North Carolina and is more of a "Louisiana-style" sauce.
White claims in the lawsuit that "the geographic origin of a product matters to consumers and a company is therefore prohibited from misrepresenting it" and that the product dupes consumers into believing they are buying an "authentic Texas hot sauce" when it's a standard "Louisiana-style hot sauce made with ingredients sourced outside the state of Texas at a factory in North Carolina."
The plaintiff goes on to say the label furthers the deception by using distinctly Texas imagery including the state's lone star along with a lassoing cowboy.
I haven't tried 'Texas Pete' Hot Sauce so there isn't much I can say about the taste. I do understand the disappointment in learning that a product you thought was Texan, turned out to be from some other state. Still, I don't think the lawsuit will go very far.