Trader Joe's gluten-free bagels actually contain high levels of gluten, lawsuit says

A newly filed class-action complaint claims Trader Joe’s gluten-free “Almost Everything” bagels contain high levels of gluten.

Submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on June 28, the class action lawsuit accuses the independent grocery chain of false advertising.

The lawsuit said while the product is clearly labeled as “gluten-free,” testing done by a nonprofit coalition called Moms Across America reportedly found the bagels have nearly 13 times the governmental limit of 20 parts per million of gluten. The bagels tested positive for 269.8 ppm of gluten, the complaint claimed.

The testing conducted on the product was performed by the Health Research Institute, a nonprofit lab in Iowa.

The plaintiff, Shaianne Starks, said in the complaint that she purchased the bagels from a Trader Joe’s store in Los Angeles County with the assumption, based on them being labeled gluten-free, that they did not contain gluten. Had she known that wasn’t true, she wouldn’t have bought them, the complaint stated.

Trader Joe’s did not immediately respond to Scripps News's request for comment.