Snack Attack: Moms Take On Nutella, Fruit Roll-Ups

Laura Rude-Barbato, a coffee shop owner in Imperial Beach, Calif., used to feed her kids Nutella several times a week. It was easy for her to identify with its ads depicting a frenzied mom serving up the chocolate-hazelnut spread with the tagline “breakfast never tasted this good.” Then she realized the product is loaded with 10.5 grams of sugar per tablespoon. “I had no idea,” she says. “I might as well have been giving my kids a Brownie for breakfast.”

Rude-Barbato kicked the Nutella habit. Then she joined a class action filed in a federal court in California that claimed Ferrero U.S.A., Nutella’s manufacturer, misled consumers via labeling and marketing into thinking the spread was healthy. In January, Ferrero settled the case and a similar one brought in New Jersey, without admitting guilt, for almost $7 million.