Can A Disclosure On The Back Of The Package Save A Claim On The Front?

We’ve posted about cases in which courts have ruled that a disclosure on the back panel of a package can’t save a misleading claim on the front panel. As the court in an earlier case put it: “You cannot take away in the back fine print what you gave on the front in large conspicuous print.” A recent decision involving Barilla’s long-running (and since retired) “Italy’s #1 Brand of Pasta” slogan shows the other side of that rule. 

Two California shoppers brought a class action against Barilla over its slogan, which appeared on the front of pasta boxes, flanked by the colors of the Italian flag. They said the label made them believe the pasta was made in Italy from Italian ingredients and bought it because of that. Apparently, they didn’t pay attention to a disclosure on the side of the boxes stating that the pasta was “Made in the U.S.A. with U.S.A. and imported ingredients.” 

In granting Barilla’s motion for summary judgment, a federal court in California explained that whether a disclosure on another panel can qualify a claim on the front depends on whether the claim is unambiguously deceptive or merely ambiguous. If a claim on the front of a package is unambiguously deceptive, a disclosure on another panel won’t save it. A claim is not ambiguous simply because it is susceptible to two possible meanings; rather, it is ambiguous when reasonable consumers would necessarily require more information before concluding that the label is making a particular representation. In that case, courts can consider what other information was available to consumers, including disclosures elsewhere on the package. 

Here, the court concluded that “Italy’s #1 Brand of Pasta” was not an unambiguous claim that the pasta was made in Italy. The statement’s literal meaning—that Barilla is the leading pasta brand in Italy—was undisputedly true and, in the court’s view, the most plausible reading. Because the claim was at most ambiguous, the court looked beyond the front panel and considered the side-panel disclosure. That disclosure, the court said, made clear that the pasta was not made in Italy with Italian ingredients. As a result, the label was not misleading as a matter of law. (The court excluded the plaintiffs’ consumer perception survey as biased, leaving no evidence from which a reasonable jury could find deception.) 

This is good news for advertisers, at least in the Ninth Circuit. A company generally cannot boldly make a misleading claim on the front of a package and expect fine print elsewhere on the package to clear it up. However, when reasonable consumers would necessarily need more information to understand a claim on the front of a package, clear disclosures elsewhere on the package can help resolve the ambiguity and defeat a deception claim. 

Note, though, that the FTC and NAD may still take a harder stance on this. Click here for a blog post examining the different approaches.

Sinatro v. Barilla America, Inc., No. 22-cv-03460-ASK (N.D. Cal. Sept. 30, 2026).