Some of the most hotly contested real estate
on the market is probably not
the kind you're thinking about.
Because this isn't a battle for land,
it's about the labels stuck to your food.
While the existence of these labels
is widely accepted, the rules governing them are not.
And fueling the disagreement about
what these labels can and cannot contain
is a spectrum of concerns,
not just health and safety implications,
but issues of economic competition, legal fairness,
the lives of countless animals,
and the future of families
who've been farming for generations.
It's important to understand how
the consumer engages that moment of looking at a label.
It's not simply sitting on a table
as one item for them to consider.
Instead it is placed in a vast array
of different products in a shopping market setting.
And that's a confusing setting
to be looking at just one label on one product.
Consumers are confused when it comes
to the nutrition of the plantbased products.
The consumer needs to understand
what they're getting when they go to a grocery store.
I don't think there's any confusion.
I don't think we've ever had a customer
that's bought our product and taken it home and said,
"Oh my God,
I didn't realize it wasn't made with cow's milk."
This is Miyoko.
She runs a vegan creamery.
They make cheese and dairylike products from nuts,
vegetables, and other vegan foods.
On her labels,
her company uses terms like cultured vegan butter
and fresh vegan mozz.
And the California Department of Food and Agriculture sent
a letter to Miyoko explaining
that she was confusing consumers.
So she would need to either change her labels
or she would be fined.
It's a free speech issue
because it's basically regulating
how Miyoko can talk about her product.
Saying she can't say something that's truthful
is an infringement on her First Amendment rights.
I think that it isn't as much a labeling issue
as it is more of an activist trying
to hurt the dairy industry.
This really doesn't have as much to do
with them being able to call their product milk,
or cheese, or yogurt,
as it does is they would just like
to see my industry destroyed.
We have been attacked from different sources,
most recently, by the State of California, by the CDFA,
the California Department of Food and Agriculture,
saying that we could not call our butter, butter,
because it wasn't made from cow's milk.
It didn't have a certain amount of milk fat in it.
And we had to even go way beyond that,
we had to remove any and all imagery and verbiage
that intimated dairy,
from not only our packaging,
but all marketing materials, website, et cetera,
including which I thought was
the most egregious complaint of all,
we had to remove an image
of a woman hugging a cow on our website.
It's not just about our company, it's a much bigger issue.
It's about the future of food,
It's about the right for companies to free speech,
as long as that speech is clear
and doesn't create confusion in the consumer mind.
And I think we've proved on all fronts
that it does not create any confusion,
in fact, it creates clarity.
It's important that labels are truthful and accurate,
and that's one of the things that's foundational
for most regulations on food labeling.
We don't want a product that says nuts in it labeled
as not nuts because that's dangerous
for people who've got nut allergies.
That's critically important.
We couldn't say lactosefree,
even though it is lactosefree.
We couldn't say crueltyfree, even though, for example,
the cosmetic industry has completely embraced
the terminology crueltyfree,
meaning that it doesn't involve animals.
But somehow we were forbidden from using that terminology
by the state regulators that control the dairy industry.
Miyoko chose to push back.
So she filed a lawsuit against
the California Department of Food and Agriculture,
basically arguing that that agency is misapplying
the FDA regulations and that they are violating her speech.
Miyoko's argument is
that you're actually confusing consumers more
when you remove terms like butter
and instead use more neutral terms like spread.
But the dairy industry believes that using terms
that were originally specific to dairyonly products,
blurs the facts about the real nutritional differences
between dairy and nondairy products.
And the dairy industry says that compared to real dairy,
substitutes just don't compare nutritionally.
While vegan dairy alternative producers argue
that vegan products are just as nutritious
and healthy as their dairy counterparts.
If these plantbased products
are nutritionally deficient,
when compared to dairy products,
and they're using dairy names,
it would be nice if they would be labeled properly,
using imitation, substitute, alternative,
to convey to the consumer
that there is something different here
that I need to address in my diet.
Yes, then an informed consumer could go out
and look for additional food sources
that would supply those nutrients.
Having options for the consumers
in the marketplace is great.
Consumers need to have options to be able to,
especially for people that are lactoseintolerant
or sensitive to dairy products.
But the labeling issue is that a vegan dairy product
is kind of an oxymoron,
that in order to be vegan, it can't have dairy in it.
All product labels do go through an evaluation
and there are clear nutritional labels on every product,
so people have the ability to look at those products
and see what their nutritional value are.
As long as there are qualifiers
that explain what a product is,
it's really on the consumer to read the package
to understand what is in the package.
Even though we call our products butter,
we made it clear that it's made from plants,
but we also put on the packaging things like spreads,
melts, bakes, and browns like butter,
so that the consumer knows,
"Oh, it's a plantbased butter,
but I can use it just like dairy butter."
For our politicians to understand that it,
to make it fair for the dairy producers,
they need to enforce the laws that are already there
to make it fair,
also to the consumers,
that they know what it is that they're getting,
that the labeling laws that are in place are implemented
and enforced that you know when you grab milk off the shelf
that you are actually getting milk.
So, let's look at the labeling laws.
Food labeling is regulated in the United States
by not one, but two different federal agencies.
The Food and Drug Administration, the FDA,
and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the USDA.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is in charge of labels
for meat and poultry and the FDA regulates everything else.
The FDA has established standards of identity
for specific types of food,
it's kind of like a recipe for milk,
and ice cream, and salad dressing,
it basically it just provides a definition
of what those items are.
That was established
so that consumers weren't taken advantage of
and they weren't confused if someone was selling
a diluted salad dressing, but calling it salad dressing.
So they were just trying to make sure
that customers weren't being deceived,
which is why those standards of identity exist.
For products like Miyoko's vegan butter,
the FDA requires a quote, "Statement of identity"
on the label that shows how it differs
from the standard of identity.
Many products function like this,
almond milk, coconut flour, and plantbased butter.
But that term, butter,
is where the issue becomes more complicated.
Because in 1906,
long before there were widespread dairy substitutes,
the FDA defined butter as quote,
"Made exclusively from milk or cream, or both,
with or without common salt,
and with or without additional coloring matter,
and containing not less than 80% by weight of milk fat,
all tolerances having been allowed for," end quote.
I think it's important to call a plantbased butter,
butter, rather than something like coconut spread,
because if a consumer sees something like coconut spread,
they're not really sure, "Well, what is it exactly?
Can I bake with it, can I cook with it?
How does it perform in a frosting," et cetera.
The plantbased folks have been stating
that it's a free speech issue and they should be allowed
to use dairy terminology on their packaging.
It may, in fact, be a free speech issue,
but you have to understand that commercial speech
has boundaries as to what you can and cannot do.
So you can assert that there's a free speech issue,
that doesn't mean that you're gonna win
if you take the matter to court.
Government frequently compels people
to do things in the speech area all the time.
Pick up any food package out there, look at it closely,
you're gonna see a nutrition facts panel,
government compelled that speech.
You're gonna see an ingredient statement,
the government compelled that speech.
The name of the food has to be presented
on the principal display panel,
the government compelled that speech.
So sitting there saying,
"You can't tell me I can't call this product almond milk,"
just doesn't make any sense
because the government compels speech all the time.
It's not a freeforall out there,
you have to follow the rules.
When you're introducing a new product,
you're gonna have to find some way
of breaking into that marketplace.
There's a freedom of speech element to that to say,
"I wanna market my product this way,
I wanna emphasize these elements there,"
and as an active marketplace, that's a good thing, right?
We want new products going out there
that meet consumers where they wanna be met.
And we think that is a good thing for society
is to have a variety of products out there
that can align with the consumers.
So freedom of speech is pretty fundamental in this
and to be able to provide the best way
of describing their products,
without being false, right, without being misleading,
and most importantly, not hurting people's health.
The National Milk Producers Federation
has actually been petitioning the FDA since 2010
to regulate the terms that are used for milk.
So they've basically been asking for there to be a new rule
that says that plantbased products cannot use
those standards of identity,
even though plantbased foods and vegan foods
are not in violation of those standards of identity
because they use qualifying words before them
to make it clear that plantbased meat
is not made out of slaughtered animals.
Right now, food labeling regulation
is relatively flexible in the United States.
That probably is a good approach right now.
It's gonna help encourage innovation,
encourage new products from entering the market.
If we shut this down too fast, right,
we have the challenge of missing out
on some fantastic products.
As long as all of the rules are applied
to all of the products in the same way, then that is fair.
The modern grocery store
has more food options than ever,
from traditional vegetables and fruits,
to organic, to locallyproduced.
From traditional dairy to lactosefree,
nondairy, vegetarian,
vegan, and countless other options.
The landscape is constantly changing around the consumer
and the question is,
should labeling laws change with the times,
or should Miyoko's and producers of dairy substitutes,
change their practices?
I don't think that the future
of the dairy industry rests on this topic,
but I think that the integrity to the consumer does.
That our job as producers is to make
a highly nutritious product and provide it to the consumer.
And the consumer knows that when they pick up milk,
there's a farmer behind that that is taking pride
in making a highly nutritious product for them.
And what I found that's so fascinating is
that as I meet people,
there is a rising interest in plantbased eating,
in veganism, and there is so much acceptance among people.
The positive of Miyoko winning this lawsuit and,
or us winning lawsuits that defeat labeling laws,
is basically just bringing us back to where we were,
where everything was equal.
We're just trying to eliminate additional obstacles
for plantbased foods,
and additional hoops for them to jump through,
to be able to label their product
so that people can figure out what they are,
what to do with them, and can purchase them.
National Milk would prefer that
this issue be resolved at the federal level.
We're better off, considerably,
if the Food and Drug Administration, at the federal level,
takes action to resolve this.
The standards of identity also have to evolve
to reflect the new future of all of these plantbased foods
that are coming into into the scene.
They didn't exist 50 years ago,
they didn't exist 30 years ago, they exist now,
and so the language also must evolve.
It's a tough question, right?
It probably depends on the perspective
by which you are sitting.
The hard part is we gotta come up with a rule
that applies to them all,
and it's probably fair to say
that some people will be winners
and some people will be losers on that,
and they won't feel like their voice
is fully represented in that situation.