Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
My profile on Vienna Beef veep Bob Schwartz a few weeks back prompted a representative of a local law firm to point out that the venerable hot dog concern has just settled a class-action lawsuit accusing it of falsely advertising its natural-casing hot dogs as “100% beef” or “pure beef.” Seems that a handful of hot dog eaters who keep kosher (or maybe not–the complaint isn’t explicitly clear) discovered that Vienna uses sheep casings and sometimes hog casings on some of its sausages. Lance A. Raphael and the Consumer Advocacy Center to the rescue. The Chicago firm filed a suit accusing Vienna of “misleading advertising and marketing of its ‘natural casing’ products,” and in July Vienna settled.
Claimants must consult their meticulously detailed dog logs and provide the quantity, location, and approximate date of purchase of the offending sausages.
