Class Action Lawsuit Filed February 25, 2025

ZuPreem Called It “Natural.” The Ingredients List Says Otherwise.

EvilCorporations.com • Case No. 1:25-cv-01067 • 14 min read

The Non-Financial Ledger

You went to PetSmart. You stood in the bird food aisle and you made a choice. You picked the bag that said “natural” because you wanted the best for a creature that depends entirely on you. Your bird cannot read the label. Your bird cannot go online and cross-reference ingredients against federal chemical databases. You did the work on their behalf, and the company you trusted knew you would.

That is not an accident. The complaint is explicit: defendants marketed the “natural” label specifically to target health-conscious pet owners who are willing to pay more for products they believe are free of synthetic substances. They saw your love for your pet as a revenue opportunity. They built a pricing strategy around it.

The betrayal is not abstract. One of the ingredients inside these bags, copper sulfate, is a pesticide compound that has been registered for use in pesticide products in the United States since 1956. Another, menadione sodium bisulfite complex, is a synthetic chemical analogue of a vitamin with known safety concerns in animal nutrition. These are not debatable technicalities. Federal regulatory text defines them. The company’s own ingredient lists confirm they are present. And then the company stamped “natural” on the bag and charged you accordingly.

Imagine explaining to someone why your bird food costs more than the store brand. You say: because it’s natural. That statement, the one you made with genuine belief, was manufactured for you by a marketing department in Chesterfield, Missouri. The word on the bag was placed there to end your inquiry, not to answer it honestly.

What is not recoverable through any lawsuit is the time you spent choosing this product, the reassurance you felt, and the basic dignity of being told the truth. Every person who bought these products was included in a transaction built on a false premise. The lawsuit counts millions of them.

Legal Receipts: The Complaint’s Own Words

The following quotes are taken verbatim from the court filing. No paraphrasing. No editorial interpretation added. The documents speak for themselves.

“Defendants prominently represent on the Products’ labeling that the Products are ‘natural’… However, this representation is false and/or misleading because the Products contain multiple synthetic ingredients, including but not limited to pyridoxine hydrochloride, citric acid, D-calcium pantothenate, folic acid, tocopherols, dl-methionine, menadione sodium bisulfite complex, and copper sulfate.”

“D-calcium pantothenate, also known as calcium pantothenate, is a salt derived from the pantothenic acid and ‘is prepared synthetically from isobutyraldehyde and formaldehyde via 1,1-dimethyl-2-hydroxy-propionaldehyde and pantolactone.’ 21 C.F.R. § 184.1212(a).”

“Copper sulfate is a toxic, inorganic compound ‘that has been registered for use in pesticide products in the United States since 1956.’ See 7 C.F.R. § 205.603(b)(1). The copper sulfate used in Defendant’s Products is not ‘natural’ but instead is manufactured by adding copper to sulfate.”

“Although Defendants include ‘with added vitamins, minerals, amino acids,’ to their labeling, a reasonable person would understand Defendants’ claim to mean that the added vitamins, minerals and amino acids are natural as well because the labeling claim does not specify that the added vitamins, minerals and amino acids are synthetic. Regardless, some of the synthetic ingredients in the Products are not vitamins, minerals, or amino acids (such as citric acid), and so this phrase does nothing to detract from the falsity of Defendants’ misrepresentations.”

“Plaintiff and New York Subclass members suffered ascertainable loss as a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ GBL violations in that: (i) they would not have purchased the Products had they known the truth; and (ii) they overpaid for the Products on account of the misrepresentations and omissions.”

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health

The direct health consequences here fall on animals that cannot report symptoms, cannot refuse food, and cannot withhold consent. The humans making choices on their behalf were deliberately misled about what those choices contained.

• Menadione sodium bisulfite complex, also known as vitamin K3, is a synthetic analogue of vitamin K that has documented toxicity concerns in animal nutrition literature. It is present in a product sold under a “natural” label, meaning bird owners who actively sought to avoid synthetic compounds were unknowingly exposing their pets to it.
• Copper sulfate is classified as a toxic, inorganic pesticide compound by U.S. federal regulators. Its presence in food marketed as clean, health-forward, and natural represents an undisclosed risk that consumers had no mechanism to identify from the packaging alone.
• Citric acid in the products is industrially manufactured through a fermentation process using Aspergillus niger, a black mold species. Over 90 percent of commercial citric acid is made this way, according to the peer-reviewed source cited in the complaint. This process produces a compound chemically distinct from naturally occurring citrate found in fruits, yet the product is sold as “natural” without distinction.
• Because the class is estimated in the millions, the total number of birds that have consumed these undisclosed synthetic and pesticide compounds under a false health assurance is potentially very large. There is no recall mechanism identified in the complaint and no proactive health monitoring proposed by the defendants.

Economic Inequality

The “natural” premium is not incidental. It is the engine of this alleged fraud. Consumers who pay more for natural labels are paying for a promise, and that promise was manufactured rather than earned.

• The complaint explicitly states that defendants made the “natural” claims to capitalize on the growing market for natural products and that health-conscious consumers paid price premiums accordingly. This means the economic harm is not spread evenly; it is concentrated on the consumers who cared most, who did the most research, and who tried the hardest to make responsible purchases.
• The proposed class numbers in the millions. Each member overpaid by some amount above what the product would have fetched without the “natural” label. At scale, the aggregate transfer of wealth from consumers to defendants based on a false premise runs into millions of dollars, which is why the threshold for federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act is met at over $5 million.
• The products are sold at major national retailers including PetSmart, Petco, Chewy, and Amazon. This distribution footprint means the harm is not limited to a niche market; it reaches consumers across all income levels who frequent mainstream retail chains.
• Under New York GBL § 350, each member of the New York Subclass could be entitled to the greater of actual damages or $500, plus triple damages. That multiplier exists because the New York legislature recognized that false advertising is not a victimless pricing error; it is a systematic extraction of money through deception.
• Consumers who would not have purchased the product at all, had they known the truth, lost the full purchase price. Consumers who would have bought a cheaper alternative lost the price difference. Both groups are represented in the class. Neither group had the information they needed to make a real choice.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

The lawsuit tells us everything except the number we most want to know: how much did ZuPreem make from this label? The filing gives us what we can calculate from.

What Now?

This case is live in federal court. Here is who is accountable, which agencies should hear about it, and what you can do that actually matters.

Who to Hold Accountable

• Compana Pet Brands LLC, the Missouri limited liability company named as a co-defendant. Principal place of business: Chesterfield, Missouri. This entity markets, distributes, and sells the ZuPreem product line.
• Premium Nutritional Products, Inc., the Delaware corporation named as co-defendant. Principal place of business: Shawnee, Kansas. The complaint alleges both entities acted jointly to perpetrate the conduct described in the filing.
• The complaint was filed and is being pursued by Bursor & Fisher, P.A. (New York), attorneys Alec Leslie and Julian C. Diamond, on behalf of lead plaintiff Catherine Riggs-Bergesen and all similarly situated purchasers.
• Both defendants are represented in the complaint as having acted with the knowledge and approval of each other, functioning as agents within the scheme. Liability is alleged jointly, not separately.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies That Need to Hear About This

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC): The FTC has jurisdiction over deceptive advertising and false labeling claims in consumer product marketing. A “natural” claim that is documented to be false in a federal court filing is precisely the kind of case the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection is empowered to act on. File a complaint at ftc.gov/complaint.
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA): The FDA regulates pet food labeling. Several of the synthetic ingredients named in the complaint are defined under FDA regulations (21 C.F.R.), which means the agency already has regulatory awareness of their synthetic nature. The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine accepts consumer reports on mislabeled pet food products.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Copper sulfate is a registered pesticide. Its presence in food labeled natural is a matter that falls within the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, which oversees registered pesticide compounds and their permitted applications.
• New York State Attorney General (NYAG): The complaint invokes New York’s General Business Law §§ 349 and 350. The NYAG’s Consumer Frauds Bureau has independent authority to pursue false advertising claims under the same statutes and has historically done so aggressively against consumer product companies.
• Missouri and Kansas State Attorneys General: Both defendant companies are incorporated in or operate from those states. State-level consumer protection offices have authority to investigate business practices originating within their jurisdictions.

What You Can Do Right Now

• Check your receipts. If you purchased any ZuPreem product labeled “natural” during the class period, you may be a class member. Do not throw away receipts, packaging, or purchase records. If the class is certified, you may be entitled to compensation without doing anything more than submitting a claim form.
• Report it to the FTC. Go to ftc.gov/complaint and file a report specifically mentioning the “natural” claim, the product name, and where you bought it. Volume of consumer complaints drives regulatory prioritization. One report is a data point; thousands are a mandate.
• Photograph the label before you discard the bag. If you have an open bag of ZuPreem “natural” product at home, photograph the front label showing the “natural” claim and the back ingredient list. These images are documentation. They may be useful in any proceeding, including regulatory complaints.
• Talk to other bird owners. The majority of people affected by this lawsuit do not know it exists. Bird owner communities on Reddit, Facebook groups, and avian care forums are full of people who buy this product. Share this article. Share the case number: 1:25-cv-01067, Eastern District of New York.
• Pressure the retailers. PetSmart, Petco, Chewy, and Amazon are all named as outlets where these products are sold. Each of these companies has supplier conduct standards and a customer relations channel. A retailer that continues to stock a product under active false-labeling litigation, without any disclosure to buyers, is making a choice. That choice responds to consumer pressure.
• Connect with local bird rescue organizations. Avian rescues often depend on donated food and frequently purchase in bulk. They are among the most likely entities to have purchased large volumes of this product in reliance on the “natural” claim. Connecting them with this information and with class counsel may help them seek restitution for those purchases.