WanaBana Lead Poisoning Lawsuit: Bankruptcy, Suits & Settlements

If your child was sickened by the recalled WanaBana apple cinnamon pouches, the WanaBana lead poisoning lawsuit landscape looks very different now than it did when the recall hit in late 2023. WanaBana LLC and WanaBana USA LLC both filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May 2024 with essentially no assets to distribute, so active cases have shifted to Dollar Tree and other companies in the supply chain. Individual personal injury suits are moving forward, Dollar Tree has already paid to settle a state enforcement action and at least one family’s claim, but no multidistrict litigation or class-wide personal injury settlement has been established.¹²

Which Products Are Covered

The recall covers all lots and expiration dates of WanaBana Apple Cinnamon Fruit Puree, sold in three-packs of 2.5-ounce pouches, plus specific lots of Schnucks Cinnamon Apple Sauce and Weis Cinnamon Apple Sauce. All three were manufactured by the same Ecuadorian producer, Austrofood S.A.S. Together the recall swept up 2,998,088 pouches.³⁴ The pouches were sold nationwide through Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and Amazon.⁵

FDA testing of a pouch pulled from a Dollar Tree store in November 2023 showed lead levels more than 200 times the agency’s recommended action level for products meant for babies and young children.⁶

Who You Can Sue Now That WanaBana Is Bankrupt

Both WanaBana entities filed voluntary Chapter 7 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on May 24, 2024. The WanaBana USA case (No. 1:24-bk-11093) was assigned to Judge Thomas M. Horan, with Jeoffrey L. Burtch as trustee. WanaBana USA listed roughly $26.5 million in scheduled claims against just $693,916 in abandoned assets. In August 2024 the trustee filed a Report of No Distribution, meaning no money moved to creditors, and the WanaBana LLC case was terminated the following month.⁷¹

Practically, that means suing WanaBana directly leads nowhere. Attorneys handling these cases have turned to defendants higher up the supply chain and down at the retail end:

Dollar Tree, as the retailer that sold the contaminated pouches and continued selling them after the recall notice.
Grupo Navis LLC, the Puerto Rico-based firm that was WanaBana USA’s 50% owner. Dollar Tree has already issued subpoenas to Grupo Navis seeking manufacturing records, test results, financial data, and communications with regulators and suppliers. Grupo Navis resisted compliance, but its CEO, Ángel Santiago-Colón, testified under oath during the WanaBana bankruptcy that the company holds those documents in Puerto Rico.⁸
Austrofood S.A.S., the Ecuadorian manufacturer the FDA cited for failing to treat lead in cinnamon as a foreseeable hazard and for relying on a “desk audit” of its cinnamon supplier instead of required annual onsite inspections.⁹

Of those, Dollar Tree is the defendant with the clearest U.S. presence and the resources to actually pay a judgment, which is why it has become the central litigation target.

Lawsuits Filed So Far

Class Action

In December 2023, Samantha Marsh filed a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 7:23-cv-11090) against WanaBana LLC and WanaBana USA LLC. The suit sought monetary compensation and a medical monitoring program for a nationwide class and a New York subclass.¹⁰ Because its defendants are the two bankrupt WanaBana entities, the case’s practical path to recovery is tied to the same empty estate that produced the trustee’s no-distribution report.

Personal Injury Suits

Individual personal injury suits have been filed in Florida and Texas state courts.²¹¹¹²

Dollar Tree Settlements

Two Dollar Tree settlements show how claims against the retailer are resolving.

In September 2025, a federal judge in Florida recommended approval of a confidential settlement between Dollar Tree and the family of a toddler who ate the recalled product and tested positive for elevated lead. The child’s blood levels had since returned to normal. With WanaBana in bankruptcy, the family settled with Dollar Tree alone. The child will receive four equal, tax-free payments beginning at age 18.²¹³

In January 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $559,250 settlement with Dollar Tree over its handling of the recall. According to the attorney general’s office, Dollar Tree received direct notification of the recall from its supplier on the morning of October 29, 2023, but failed to immediately block sales, delaying activation of a register lock for more than 24 hours. At least 226 three-pack units were sold in New York after the recall notice, including through online order pickup as late as a week after the recall began. The settlement also required Dollar Tree to overhaul its recall procedures, including activating register stop codes within hours of a recall, enhancing training for store managers, and strengthening notifications for online buyers.¹⁴ That is a state enforcement settlement, not a payout to injured children, but it establishes facts about Dollar Tree’s post-recall conduct that private plaintiffs can lean on.

The Harm Behind the Claims

The CDC’s April 2025 report tied 566 cases of lead poisoning across 44 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico to the recalled products: 130 confirmed, 401 probable, and 35 suspected. Children under six accounted for 96% of cases, and more than half were under two.⁴

Blood lead levels among confirmed and probable cases ranged from 3.5 to 39.3 micrograms per deciliter, with a median of 7.2 µg/dL. About 32% of cases had venous blood lead levels at or above 10 µg/dL. Roughly one in five cases reported symptoms, including abdominal pain, vomiting, altered mood, developmental delays, and lethargy. No hospitalizations were reported.⁴

Both the CDC and the World Health Organization say no level of lead exposure is known to be safe for children. Blood lead concentrations as low as 3.5 µg/dL have been associated with reduced IQ, learning difficulties, and behavioral problems. Young children absorb four to five times as much lead as adults, and the neurological damage can be permanent.¹⁵¹⁶ That permanence is the premise of the damages theory in the personal injury suits, even when a child’s blood levels have since normalized.

How the Contamination Happened

The FDA traced the lead to a single ingredient: ground cinnamon processed in Ecuador by a company called Carlos Aguilera, sold through a distributor called Negasmart to manufacturer Austrofood S.A.S., which produced the finished pouches in Quito and shipped them to WanaBana USA for marketing and distribution in the United States.⁵¹⁷

Cinnamon samples at the Austrofood facility showed lead concentrations of 2,270 and 5,110 parts per million, with chromium at 1,201 and 531 ppm.⁹ The FDA identified the contaminant as lead chromate, a bright yellow-orange compound historically used to illegally boost the color and weight of spices. Ecuador’s health regulator, ARCSA, tested the unprocessed cinnamon sticks Carlos Aguilera had sourced from Sri Lanka and found no lead, pointing to adulteration during the grinding stage in Ecuador. The FDA called this economically motivated adulteration.⁵

Carlos Aguilera denied responsibility, saying lead was not found in samples from three of his mills. The business is no longer operating.¹⁷¹⁸ The FDA has placed Negasmart on Import Alert 99-47 for economically motivated adulteration and Import Alert 99-42 for heavy metal contamination, and in November 2024 issued warning letters to WanaBana USA LLC, Purcell International, and Caribbean Produce Exchange LLC for failing to conduct adequate hazard analyses and supplier verification under the Foreign Supplier Verification Program.¹⁹²⁰²¹

Where the Litigation Stands

As of 2026, there is no multidistrict litigation and no class-wide personal injury settlement. Individual suits continue, with Dollar Tree as the primary defendant for families whose children were exposed. The FDA’s active investigation is closed and the agency has moved to post-incident surveillance, including broader testing of cinnamon products from discount retailers. Ecuadorian authorities’ investigation into ultimate responsibility is unresolved, and no criminal charges have been reported against Carlos Aguilera in either country.⁵

If your child consumed one of the recalled pouches, the practical steps a plaintiff’s attorney will want are the same ones the Florida settlement rested on: documentation that the specific product was purchased and consumed, blood lead testing records showing elevated levels tied to the exposure window, and medical records tracking symptoms or developmental concerns since. Those records will matter more now than the identity of the defendant on a complaint, because the viable defendant has already shifted.

1
PACER Monitor. WanaBana LLC Bankruptcy Case
2
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FDA. WanaBana Recalls Apple Cinnamon Fruit Puree Pouches
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FDA. Investigation of Elevated Lead and Chromium Levels in Cinnamon Applesauce Pouches
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Manufacturing Dive. FDA Wanabana Applesauce Pouch Investigation
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Inforuptcy. Bankruptcy Case: WanaBana USA LLC
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News Is My Business. Puerto Rico Firm at Center of U.S. Litigation Over Lead-Tainted Products
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FDA. Warning Letter to Austrofood S.A.S.
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Motley Rice. Applesauce Lawsuit Claims Lead Poisoned Two Children
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Law360. Judge Backs Settlement in WanaBana Lead Poisoning Case
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New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Secures Nearly $560,000 From Dollar Tree for Selling Recalled Lead-Contaminated Products
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CDC. Lead Poisoning Symptoms and Complications
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WHO. Lead Poisoning and Health
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NBC News. FDA Names Likely Source of Lead-Contaminated Cinnamon Applesauce Pouches
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WRAL. Cinnamon Processor Named as Likely Source of Lead Contamination in Applesauce
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FDA. Post-Incident Response Activities
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FDA. Warning Letter to WanaBana USA LLC
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FDA. Warning Letter to Caribbean Produce Exchange LLC