Approved claimants in the $10 million Wheat Thins “100% Whole Grain” settlement report receiving a second payment of about $49 on September 11, 2026, months after a much smaller first payment in January. Claims closed July 7, 2025 and nothing new can be filed — the money reaching people now is the leftover fund the court ordered redistributed.
What Is This About?
Class members who filed in the Wheat Thins labeling settlement began reporting a new payment of roughly $49 on September 11, 2026. Several of the same people say they were paid about $6 in January 2026 and had considered the matter finished. The case is Wallenstein v. Mondelez International, Inc., No. 3:22-cv-06033-VC in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, before Judge Vince Chhabria.
A second, larger payment in a settlement that already paid once looks irregular, but in this case it is what the court ordered. The final approval order entered December 12, 2025 set out an implementation schedule that expressly contemplated a supplemental distribution of whatever remained after the first round of payments cleared.
What has not been established is an official announcement. No notice from the settlement administrator or the court confirming the September 11 payments, their amount, or the method used to send them has been located, so the amounts below are what claimants say they received rather than a published figure.
Free settlement alerts
Get notified when new class actions open to claims
Join thousands of readers who get the latest class action settlements you may qualify for — delivered straight to your inbox.
The Court Ordered a Second Distribution
The implementation schedule attached to the December 12, 2025 final approval order set a milestone the administrator called the determination of uncleared payments, dated July 10, 2026. It provides that 180 days after payments are issued, any funds that remain unclaimed or unused after the initial distribution are to be distributed to class members who cashed the initial payment, on a pro rata basis, to the extent the administrator, class counsel and Mondelez consider the cost of that redistribution economical.
That language does two things worth noticing. It restricts the second round to people who cashed the first payment, so a class member who let an initial payment expire is not in line for it. And it makes the supplemental distribution the default destination for leftover money — ahead of, not instead of, the cy pres recipients named in the same order.
The same schedule required class counsel to file a post-distribution accounting within 21 days after the settlement funds were fully distributed to class members and before any distribution to cy pres recipients, with a stated date of July 31, 2026. The docket shows a Post-Distribution Accounting Form filed that day.
Why the Second Payment Dwarfs the First
The settlement created a $10 million all-cash, non-reversionary fund, meaning no unspent money returns to Mondelez. Against that fund, the claims themselves were small. The administrator calculated 111,388 valid claims, of which 108,976 were filed without proof of purchase and 2,412 with proof.
At the scheduled rates — $4.50 per household without proof, and a minimum of $8.00 with proof rising by $0.15 per documented unit to a $20.00 household cap — those claims add up to somewhere around $510,000 to $540,000. The court separately awarded $3,333,333 in attorneys' fees and $587,577.05 in litigation expenses, plus service awards to the class representatives totaling $19,500. Even before notice and administration costs, which are not itemized in the publicly available filings, several million dollars of the fund was not spoken for.
A supplemental payment of roughly $49 spread across about 111,000 approved claims works out to something in the neighborhood of $5.5 million. That is consistent with the size of the remainder the record implies, which is the strongest available reason to treat the reported payments as genuine rather than as a scam.
What Is Not Confirmed
The payment method is unsettled. Claimants describing the September 11 payments have named more than one digital wallet, and the court-approved schedule also provided for paper checks mailed by January 9, 2026 in the first round. There is no basis in the record for saying the second distribution went out exclusively through any one service, and a headline promising a specific app would be guessing.
The exact amount is also unofficial. Reports cluster around $49 and change, but per-claim amounts in a pro rata distribution depend on the claim tier and on how many initial payments cleared, so individual figures can differ. Anyone waiting on a payment that has not arrived should watch the account or address used for the January payment rather than acting on a figure reported by someone else.
Important: the claim window is closed and cannot be reopened. Any message inviting a new Wheat Thins settlement filing, asking for a fee to release a payment, or requesting banking credentials to "verify" a distribution is not part of the court-authorized process.
How the Case Got Here
The complaint was filed October 13, 2022 and alleged that labeling the covered Wheat Thins products "100% WHOLE GRAIN" was misleading because the crackers also contained refined grain ingredients. Mondelez International, Mondelez Global and Nabisco denied the allegations throughout, and the final approval order states that nothing in the settlement or the judgment is an admission of liability or wrongdoing.
The court granted preliminary approval on April 10, 2025 and set a final approval hearing for December 11, 2025. Notice reached an estimated 80 percent of likely class members an average of 3.3 times each. No class member opted out and no objector appeared at the hearing, which ran four minutes. Ahead of it, class counsel filed a brief statement addressing fraudulent claims activity in the claims process, supported by a declaration from the administrator.
The court granted final approval and entered final judgment on December 12, 2025, and the civil case was terminated the same day. In addition to the money, the settlement required a labeling change: Mondelez agreed not to use the "100% WHOLE GRAIN" representation on its own, or immediately before the Wheat Thins brand name, without other qualifying language on the covered packages, subject to an 18-month period to sell through existing inventory.
What Happens Next
Two things remain open on the docket. The court ordered the administrator to withhold 10 percent of the attorneys' fees until after the post-distribution accounting was filed, with class counsel to submit a proposed order releasing the remainder alongside it. And any money still uncleared once the supplemental distribution runs its course goes to the designated cy pres recipients — the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law and Feeding America, in equal shares.
For class members, nothing further is required. The settlement page carries the full claim history, the payment tiers and the official document library: see the Wheat Thins whole grain settlement page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still file a Wheat Thins settlement claim?
No. The claim deadline was July 7, 2025 and the court entered final judgment on December 12, 2025. The administrator is not accepting new claims, and only approved claimants who cashed the first payment are in line for the supplemental distribution.
I filed a claim but never got the January payment. Am I getting this one?
Probably not. The court's schedule limits the redistribution to class members who cashed the initial payment. A claimant whose first payment was never issued or never cleared is outside the group the order describes.
Is the second payment coming through Zelle?
Unconfirmed. Claimants have named more than one digital wallet and the first round also included mailed checks. No official notice identifying a payment method for the September 2026 distribution has been located.
What happens to money nobody cashes this time?
It goes to the cy pres recipients the court approved — the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law and Feeding America, in equal shares — after the post-distribution accounting is on file.
Did Mondelez admit the label was misleading?
No. The allegation was never decided, and the final approval order states that the settlement is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing. Mondelez did agree to stop using the representation without qualifying language.
Sources
- Order Granting Final Approval of Class Settlement, ECF No. 138, and Final Judgment, ECF No. 140, both entered December 12, 2025 — including the implementation schedule, the cy pres designation and the fee, expense and service award figures.
- Motion for Final Approval of Class Settlement, ECF No. 130, filed November 28, 2025 — the claim counts, payment tiers, notice reach and fund structure.
- Order Granting Preliminary Approval of Class Settlement, ECF No. 122, entered April 10, 2025.
- Post-Distribution Accounting Form, ECF No. 144, filed July 31, 2026.
- Docket in Wallenstein v. Mondelez International, Inc., No. 3:22-cv-06033-VC (N.D. Cal.), via CourtListener.
- Official settlement website: Wheat Thins Class Settlement.
- Payment amounts and timing for September 11, 2026 are from public reports by class members and are not confirmed by the administrator or the court record.
