Texas Sues Gerber and Nestlé Over Heavy Metals in Baby Food: What a State Enforcement Case Does for a Parent, and What It Does Not

What Changed, and When

The Office of the Attorney General announced the suit on October 14, 2026. The defendants named are Gerber Products Company and Nestlé USA, Inc. The statute is the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. As published, the release states the allegations and the statute; it does not state the court, the county or a cause number, and the petition is linked from the release rather than reproduced in it.

According to the release, the State alleges:

• The marketing claims. That Gerber represented its baby food as safe, pure, rigorously tested and recommended by medical professionals, while its own test results showed heavy metals the State describes as dangerous.
• Rice flour, 2017 through 2019. That Gerber used 67 batches of rice flour containing inorganic arsenic at more than nine times the amount federal rules allow in bottled water.
• Carrots and sweet potatoes. That Gerber carrots reached up to 17 times the bottled-water limit for cadmium, and Gerber sweet potatoes nearly 10 times the bottled-water limit for lead.
• How the testing was done. That Gerber rarely tested for mercury, and that for most of the period it tested selected ingredients rather than the finished food an infant eats.
• The 2021 Alaska finding. That a state laboratory in Alaska found two Gerber rice cereal samples above the federal arsenic action level in 2021; that Beech-Nut recalled its cereal; and that Gerber issued no recall and no warning.
• Recall history. That Gerber has recalled products for plastic fragments and choking hazards, but never for heavy metals.
• The QR code. That Gerber now posts test results behind a code on the package, and that, as the release puts it, a code on the back of the jar does not cure a false promise on the front.

The Attorney General is quoted saying, “Gerber promised parents its food was safe and rigorously tested,” and stating that he intends to hold the company accountable to those promises. The release also notes an earlier agreement with Plum concerning heavy-metal testing and publicly accessible results, announced September 29, 2026.

No response from Gerber or Nestlé appears in the coverage reviewed for this page. A petition states one side of a case. The companies have an opportunity to answer, and what a court finds can differ from what a petition alleges.

What the Numbers Are Being Compared To

The comparison running through the release is to bottled water, and it is worth being precise about what that comparison is and is not. Bottled water carries binding federal quality standards for arsenic, lead and cadmium under the Food and Drug Administration bottled-water rules. Baby food does not carry equivalent binding numeric limits for those metals. What it carries instead is guidance, and the Food and Drug Administration describes its guidance documents as representing its current thinking rather than as legally enforceable requirements.

The two guidance numbers that bear on the foods named here:

• Inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal: 100 parts per billion. The Food and Drug Administration issued that action level as final guidance on August 5, 2020.
• Lead in processed food for children under two. The agency finalized action levels on January 6, 2025: 10 parts per billion for fruits, vegetables other than single-ingredient root vegetables, mixtures including grain- and meat-based mixtures, yogurts, custards and puddings, and single-ingredient meats; and 20 parts per billion for single-ingredient root vegetables and for dry infant cereals.

Why this matters to a reader rather than to a regulator: a multiple of a bottled-water standard is a vivid comparison, and it is also a comparison between two different regulatory regimes. The question of which benchmark a court applies to which product, and what a deviation from a non-binding action level proves about a marketing claim, is a legal question on contested facts rather than a settled one. It is also precisely the kind of question that separates a headline from a case.

Who in Texas This Reaches

Three groups, and they are not the same group.

• Texas households that bought the products. The suit is brought on behalf of the State and is statewide. Neither the release nor the coverage publishes a Texas purchaser count, a product list by lot, or a date range for purchases beyond the 2017 to 2019 window described for the rice flour.
• Children who ate the products and have since been diagnosed with a developmental condition. This is a different kind of claim from a purchase claim, it belongs to the child rather than to the parent, and it is being litigated separately in federal court rather than in this case.
• Everyone else reading about it. A deceptive trade practices enforcement action does not create a claim for a household that was not deceived and suffered no loss. That is not a discouraging point; it is the first thing a lawyer screens for, and it is why the answer depends on one family facts rather than on the news.

What This Changes Legally

Four things, each from the statute rather than from the coverage.

1. A state enforcement suit is not a class action, and it does not file anything for a parent. Under Section 17.47 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code, the civil penalties the State seeks are paid to the state. The same section lets a court order relief to compensate identifiable persons for actual damages and to restore money or property acquired through unlawful acts — and it provides that damages under that subsection may not include losses incurred more than two years before the Consumer Protection Division filed suit. For a suit filed in October 2026, that reach-back runs to roughly October 2024, whatever a household bought in 2018. Whether any restitution is ordered at all is for the court, and this case is at its beginning.

2. A parent own claim is a separate track with its own deadlines. The Deceptive Trade Practices Act provides a private action. Section 17.565 requires an action to be commenced within two years after the deceptive act occurred, or within two years after the consumer discovered or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered it, with a 180-day extension where the plaintiff proves the delay was caused by the defendant knowingly acting to induce postponement. Section 17.505(a) requires written notice at least 60 days before filing, describing the complaint in reasonable detail and stating economic damages, mental anguish damages and expenses including attorney fees. Section 17.50 is where additional damages for knowing or intentional conduct are addressed, and Section 17.46 is the list of deceptive acts the State invoked here.

3. A claim belonging to a child runs on a clock that has not started. This is the single most consequential difference on this page, and it almost never appears in the coverage. Section 16.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code provides that a person is under a legal disability if the person is “younger than 18 years of age, regardless of whether the person is married.” It then provides that if a person entitled to bring a personal action is under a legal disability when the cause of action accrues, the time of the disability is not included in a limitations period. The same section provides that disabilities may not be tacked one to another, and that a disability arising after a limitations period has started does not suspend it. Against the general two-year personal-injury period in Section 16.003(a), the practical effect for a child personal-injury claim is a far longer horizon than the one a parent purchase claim has. How Section 16.001 interacts with a Deceptive Trade Practices Act claim as opposed to a products claim, and whose claim is whose in a particular household, are questions for a lawyer on specific facts rather than questions this page can answer.

4. The injury claims already have a federal home, and it is a difficult one right now. Claims alleging that heavy metals in baby food caused autism or attention-deficit conditions are consolidated as MDL No. 3101 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California before Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley. A litigation tracker reports roughly 497 cases pending as of October 2026, a February 27, 2026 ruling that excluded most of the plaintiffs general-causation expert testimony, and a summary-judgment motion on the autism and attention-deficit claims argued on August 13, 2026 and taken under submission. Those details come from secondary reporting rather than from the docket, and docket status changes. The point for a Texas reader is structural rather than predictive: the state consumer case announced this week and the federal injury litigation are different cases, with different plaintiffs, different proof and different outcomes, and one does not decide the other.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Nothing on this page tells a reader what their situation is. What it can do is name the questions a Texas consumer protection or product liability attorney is in a position to answer by reading one household records against this filing:

• Whether a purchase and a loss fall inside the two-year reach Section 17.47 draws around the division filing date, and separately inside Section 17.565 for a claim of the household own.
• Whether the discovery rule in Section 17.565 bears on purchases made before the test results described in the release became public, and what would have to be proved for it.
• What the Section 17.505 notice letter would need to contain, and how its 60 days fits a particular timeline.
• Whether a claim here is better characterized as an economic claim about what was paid, or as a personal-injury claim belonging to a child, which are different claims with different proof.
• Whether Section 16.001 keeps a child claim open, and what that means for when a family needs to act as against when a family may act.
• How a Texas family relationship to the federal multidistrict litigation, if any, interacts with a claim brought in Texas.
• What records establish that particular products were bought, when, and in what quantity — which is usually the first thing that decides whether a file goes anywhere.

Attorneys who handle deceptive trade practices and product cases describe the first step as assembling the file rather than deciding the claim: receipts and card or bank statements showing the purchases, store loyalty or online order history, photographs of packaging showing product names and lot codes, any product still in the pantry, pediatric records including developmental screenings, and a written timeline of what was fed, when, and for how long.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

Limitations run from the act or from discovery, not from the day someone reads a news story. A filing announced on October 14 does not restart anyone else clock, and Section 17.565 two years is already partly spent for purchases made in 2024 and 2025.

Section 17.505 adds 60 days in front of a filing rather than at the end of one. A notice letter sent today makes a filing possible two months from today, which is why the notice date and the limitations date are usually read together rather than separately.

The records are the part that decays, and they decay faster than the deadlines. Grocery purchase histories age out of retailer systems, card statements fall off online banking, packaging with the lot code goes in the bin, and memory of which product was fed in which month becomes an estimate rather than a record. A child claim may have years of limitations left under Section 16.001 while the proof of purchase for that child has already disappeared — a long clock on a thin file is not the same thing as a long clock on a documented one.

And this case is new. A petition filed on October 14, 2026 has not been answered, and the State case may or may not produce restitution for identifiable persons. A household that has its own records assembled is in a different position from one that waits to see what the State case does, whichever way it goes.

Sources

1. Primary document. Office of the Attorney General of Texas, “Attorney General Ken Paxton Sues Major Baby Food Companies Gerber and Nestlé for Selling Baby Food Containing Dangerous Levels of Arsenic and Lead”, October 14, 2026 (defendants Gerber Products Company and Nestlé USA, Inc.; Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act; 67 batches of rice flour 2017 to 2019 at more than nine times the bottled-water arsenic limit; carrots up to 17 times the cadmium limit; sweet potatoes nearly 10 times the lead limit; mercury rarely tested; ingredient rather than finished-food testing; the 2021 Alaska laboratory finding and the absence of a Gerber recall; the QR-code test results).
2. KVIA ABC-7, “Paxton sues Gerber, Nestlé over alleged toxic metals in baby food”, October 14, 2026 (independent account of the filing, the metals named and the testing allegations).
3. WTAW, “Attorney General Ken Paxton Sues Major Baby Food Companies Gerber and Nestlé”, October 14, 2026 (the release text as distributed, including the Plum agreement reference).
4. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “FDA Issues Final Guidance for Industry on Action Level for Inorganic Arsenic in Infant Rice Cereals” (action level of 100 parts per billion; final guidance issued August 5, 2020).
5. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “FDA Issues Final Guidance for Industry on Action Levels for Lead in Processed Food Intended for Babies and Young Children”, January 6, 2025 (10 parts per billion for fruits, vegetables other than single-ingredient root vegetables, mixtures, yogurts, custards and puddings, and single-ingredient meats; 20 parts per billion for single-ingredient root vegetables and dry infant cereals; children under two years of age).
6. Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 17.46 (deceptive trade practices).
7. Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 17.47 (civil penalties paid to the state; restitution for identifiable persons; the two-year limit on losses before the division filing).
8. Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 17.565 (two years from the act or from discovery; 180-day extension on proof the defendant knowingly induced delay).
9. Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 17.505 (written notice at least 60 days before filing).
10. Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 17.50 (private action and additional damages for knowing or intentional conduct).
11. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.001 (legal disability for a person younger than 18; the time of the disability is not included in a limitations period; no tacking; a later-arising disability does not suspend a running period) and Section 16.003(a) (two-year period for personal injury).
12. MDL Update, “Baby Food Heavy Metals Lawsuit, MDL 3101” (Northern District of California, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley; approximately 497 cases pending as of October 2026; February 27, 2026 expert ruling; August 13, 2026 summary-judgment argument taken under submission — secondary reporting, not the docket).