A pepper controversy has reached federal court in Minneapolis.

Small Minnesota manufacturer Watkins Inc. sued large spice manufacturer McCormick & Co. on Tuesday, alleging the company deceived customers by covertly lowering the pepper content of its tins by 25% without altering the cost or size of the container.

Winona-based Food extracts from Watkins are well-known, particularly vanilla. In recent years, the 147-year-old company has been attempting to grow its spice business.

Watkins filed a lawsuit alleging McCormick engaged in deceptive trade tactics, misleading consumers and food retailers, and breaking federal and state laws.

According to Watkins, McCormick has reduced the amount of pepper in their spice canisters by half, to 2 ounces, as reported by The Star Tribune.

According to Watkins’ lawsuit, McCormick “gave the false impression that nothing had changed.” “Now, twenty-five percent of the company’s pepper tins are empty, which constitutes nonfunctional ‘slack-fill.’”

According to Watkins, since McCormick is the industry leader in pepper products, it has effectively established the bar for packaging, encouraging rival companies to utilise tins of a comparable size.

“McCormick intentionally maintained the price of its standard tins, notwithstanding the significant reduction in the amount of ground black pepper contained in the traditional tin, which had the effect of further adding to the perception that nothing had changed,” Watkins said in the suit.

According to Lori Robinson, a spokesperson for McCormick, the business has lowered the net weight of its black pepper and has been transparent about the modifications.

“We followed industry standard procedures and were transparent about this change, clearly updating the net weight on packaging, issuing a UPC code change and notifying retailers well in advance. It is typical for packaging size and UPC code changes to take time in store to transition,” Robinson said in a statement.