By Sumayya
A group lawsuit has been filed in Quebec Superior Court against U.S. fruit company Driscoll’s over claims that its berries held chemical traces passing the amounts permitted in Canada.
The lawsuit claims that the California-based firm failed to tell shoppers who bought its strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries of the presence of pesticide traces or alternate chemicals.
The intended group action holds anyone who bought Driscoll’s brand berries in Quebec since Jan. 1, 2022.
“The failure to share this vital data regarding berries sold in Quebec remains compounded by misleading statements surrounding these items,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit states that shoppers were therefore unable to execute clear choices and may have faced probable health hazards without agreeing to them.
The claims in the intended group lawsuit have not been tested in court.
Probably millions of group members
The fighter is a Quebec lady who claims she has eaten dozens of boxes of Driscoll’s berries since January 2022. The lawsuit likewise states that she ate the berries while she stood pregnant in 2025.
“Ms. Gauthier had always thought that pesticides were deployed in the farming of the Driscoll’s berries she bought,” the lawsuit expressed.
“However, she had always anticipated them to hold pesticide traces at levels that matched matching rules. For the fighter, as for any shopper, the point that the berries she bought hold pesticides in excess of official limits remains a primary topic.”
There could be probably millions of group members if the lawsuit remains permitted by a judge, the lawsuit claims. The volume of pay and fine costs has yet to be settled.
Driscoll’s remains the planet’s grandest berry seller, shipping four billion trays of fruit yearly to deeper than sixty lands, including Canada, according to the lawsuit.
In Quebec, its items remain sold at several shops, including IGA, Maxi, Rachelle Berry, Provigo, Super C, Metro, Tradition, and Pharmaprix (Shoppers Drug Mart).
Former Driscoll’s worker speaks out
The lawsuit arrives after David Harada, a prior worker of Driscoll’s, claimed in a lawsuit filed in June that roughly half of the firm’s sales to Canada held chemicals — including bifenthrin, iprodione, and captan — passing limits permitted in Canada between 2022 and 2024.
Harada, who launched in September 2022 as a crop expert and later turned into director of food safety and rule matching for the United States and Canada at Driscoll’s, calculates that the value of sales of berries to Canada that may have been dirty reached near US100 million.
He stood let go on Oct. 1, 2025, after claiming his boss’s routine of selling berries with pesticide residue passing the amounts permitted in Canada.
Driscoll’s dropped its checking network
According to the lawsuit, the firm had a network to check the safety of its items and its matching with Canadian rules, but Driscoll’s dropped that network in 2022.
The firm stood told of errors regarding the levels of chemical traces on its berries by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), RQA Inc., and its Canadian buyers, but the lawsuit claims it moved on to market millions of pounds of berries in Canada despite knowing that they passed the official limits for pesticides and specific alternate chemicals.
CFIA checks at Canadian food stores between 2022 and 2024 allegedly verified that fruit sold by Driscoll’s held chemicals over the limits permitted in Canada.
The lawsuit says the agency obtained records of probable sickness from eating Driscoll’s blueberries, as well as a chemical taste or scent in the fruit.
Driscoll’s answers to claims
In a report to CTV News, Driscoll’s expressed it fights the claims made in the intended group lawsuit.
“Driscoll’s fights those claims and welcomes the opening to address these claims through the legal track, where the basic facts, data, and expert review can be fully checked,” the report reads.
“We remain sure that Canadians will observe that Driscoll’s preserves deep food safety and matching programs and that the claims do not mirror the reality of how our business runs.”
The firm expressed that its berries remain safe to eat and stressed that it places first the safety and quality of its items.
“Driscoll’s buys berries for Canadians from dozens of outside family farms and deploys deep testing, checking, and matching steps planned to meet rule terms in the markets where our items remain sold, including Canada,” Driscoll’s wrote.
“We take food safety and matching seriously and spend primary assets to assist ensure the safety and quality of our berries. Our target remains always full matching with applicable rules.”
Driscoll’s likewise wrote that it values its Canadian shoppers, growers, and neighborhoods and matches Canada’s food laws and rules.
“Canadians have positioned their trust in our berries for generations, and we take that duty seriously,” it expressed.
“For deeper than 100 years, we have performed to earn the trust of shoppers by talking responsibly about our items and farming routines, and we stay bound to earning the trust of Canadian shoppers every phase through safe, high-quality items and matching with Canadian laws and rules.”
