Two Grams of Allulose in a Sugar-Free Can

Listen to this episode of The Daily Trends Report, then use the piece below.

Liquid Death's Sparkling Energy cans carry about two grams of allulose. The front of the can says sugar free. On August 25 a plaintiff's firm filed in the Southern District of New York and argued those two things can't both be true.

A day earlier, the maker of David protein bars got the same treatment in the Northern District of California. The complaint against Linus Technology MergerSub says shoppers paid a premium for zero grams of sugar and were, in the filing's words, "deprived of the benefit of their bargain."

The filings aren't the news

Earlier in August a federal judge revived a consumer complaint against Chobani over allulose in its sugar-free yogurt. Chobani's defense was the sensible one, the one most of the category is standing on right now. In 2020 the FDA said it would not take enforcement action over allulose while it worked out the rulemaking. Brands read that letter and built product lines on it.

Then the FDA filed an amicus brief in that case saying allulose falls under the legal definition of sugar. The judge let the complaint go forward. That's the hinge, and it's the only sentence in this story you need to remember. Enforcement discretion protects you from the agency. It does nothing about a guy in California who bought your bar and kept the receipt. The complaint against David cites the Chobani ruling as precedent, which tells you exactly how the next four months go.

The arithmetic is the uncomfortable part. FDA's nutrition labeling guidance defines sugars as the sum of all free mono- and disaccharides. Allulose is a monosaccharide. Sugar-free means under half a gram. Two grams is not under half a gram. Chobani's public answer, that allulose doesn't add calories, raise blood sugar, or cause cavities, is a good argument about physiology and an irrelevant one about counting. Food Dive's Laurel Deppen has the filing details, and the earlier Chobani piece is the one to read first.

This arrived as a legal story. It is a front-of-pack problem, and front of pack is your job.

What the social side does this week

Your legal team is already awake. Here's the part nobody is going to hand you.

Get the number today. Not from the brand deck, from whoever signs off on the nutrition facts panel. You need one sentence about whether your zero-sugar claim counts allulose, and you need it in your hands before a commenter asks, because the gap between the question and the answer is where the screenshot gets made.

Then don't post about the lawsuits. Not the ones naming Liquid Death or David, and not yours if you catch one. A brand that jumps into an active case in its own category is volunteering to be the next search result, and the dunk always ages into a screenshot somebody else uses. Answer in replies, in your own voice, one commenter at a time.

If your sweetener system is clean under the definition, this is a window and it closes. Say what you use. Not what you avoid.

Pasteable copy

If allulose is in your product, this goes in replies, not as a post. Keep it flat and boring on purpose:

"Fair question. We sweeten with allulose. FDA counts allulose as a sugar under its labeling definition, and there's active litigation over how that gets stated on pack. We're reviewing our front panel now and we'll say something specific when we have it, not before. Full ingredient list is on the site and it hasn't changed."

If your sweetener system is clean under the definition, this is a post, and it never names a competitor:

"Somebody asked what's in our sweetener line, so here it is, all of it, in order. No allulose. No blend we can't spell out. If you want to check the math against the label, the panel is on the back of every unit and the number on the front is the same number. That's the whole trick."

Still direction

Shoot the back of the pack, not the front. Overhead, hard flat surface, the actual product in frame with the nutrition panel legible and in focus at readable size on a phone. Daylight from a window at a low angle so the panel text stays crisp. No hands, no styling, no confetti, no counter clutter. The whole point is that you'll let people read it. One shot, no set, no crew, and it should look like somebody in the office took it, because somebody in the office did.

Fifteen to thirty second video, shot today

Vertical, one operator, phone propped on a stack of boxes. Five shots:

1. Two seconds. Hands set the product on a table, front panel toward camera. No talking yet.
2. Four seconds. Person on camera, mid-shot: "Somebody asked what our zero sugar actually means."
3. Eight seconds. Close on the ingredient panel, finger tracking down the line while they read the sweetener out loud by name.
4. Six seconds. Back to the person: whether allulose is in there, and if it is, that FDA counts it as a sugar and you're looking at your front panel. Give the timeline you will actually hit.
5. Four seconds. Product back on the table, hand out of frame. Hold on it. No card, no logo sting, no music swell.

Post it once, in feed, no boost. The credibility is in the fact that it looks like it took the twelve minutes it took.

Where this goes

The comment period on FDA's proposed GRAS rule closes December 9, and the allulose definition question isn't resolving before then. So the next four months are a stretch where private plaintiffs move faster than the agency does, and every front-of-pack claim in the better-for-you set is exposed to anybody with standing and a filing fee. The brands that come out of this fine are the ones whose number was defensible before somebody asked.

This is the extension of today's episode. The show is the briefing, the article is the detail, the post is what you actually ship. Subscribe to The Daily Trends Report on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and it's in your ears before the desk fills up.

If you're working through a front-of-pack claim right now and want a second read on it, find me on LinkedIn.