If you didn’t know that Texas Pete hot sauce was not really made in Texas, you know now. A class-action lawsuit was just filed in September against the hot sauce’s producers by a Los Angeles man who is alleging false advertising.
Philip White from Los Angeles, California said while he was shopping at Ralph’s grocery store, he would have never spent his money on the hot sauce if he knew it wasn’t from Texas, and he believes millions of other people wouldn’t have either.
According to North Carolina news station WGHP-TV, Philip filed the lawsuit with the California Central District Court against the North Carolina-based T.W. Garner Food Co. after learning that Texas Pete hot sauce was actually made in North Carolina.
He said he “relied upon the language and images on the front label” before his purchase, which features a white star like the Texas flag and an all-red cartoon cowboy and appeared to be “distinctly Texan.”
FOX reported that the complaint is asking that the hot sauce “change its name and brand and to pay up” because “there is surprisingly nothing Texas about them.”
T.W. Garner Food Co. has until November 10th to respond to the lawsuit but already in their defense, they publicly state on their website that the Texas Pete hot sauce is made in North Carolina.
The Texas Pete website says in full, “So how is it that a tasty red pepper sauce made in North Carolina happens to be named ‘Texas Pete’ anyway? Legend has it that, when Sam Garner and his three sons, Thad, Ralph and Harold, were trying to come up with a brand name for this spicy new sauce they had created, a marketing advisor suggested the name ‘Mexican Joe’ to connote the piquant flavor reminiscent of the favorite foods of our neighbors to the south. ‘Nope!’ said the patriarch of the Garner family. ‘It’s got to have an American name!’ Sam suggested they move across the border to Texas, which also had a reputation for spicy cuisine. Then he glanced at son Harold, whose nickname was ‘Pete’ and the Texas Pete cowboy was born.”
Will Philip White win his class-action lawsuit against T.W. Garner Food Co.?
It’s not clear yet and there’s still a lot of time between now and the end of this. However, it is a developing story and we’ll be sure to keep you posted on how this all turns out.