The Battle Over What is Milk

WASHINGTON (DTN) -- Food groups are restarting efforts to force the Food and Drug Administration to define "milk" and "cheese."

A group called the Good Food Institute sent a letter Monday to the Food and Drug Administration urging the agency to act on the Soyfoods Association's 20-year-old petition to recognize the term "soymilk." The Soyfoods Association of North America praised the Good Food Institute's actions.

Meanwhile, the National Milk Producers Federation urged the FDA to continue to ignore the soymilk petition. Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation said, "The Soyfoods Association's 20-year-old petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is as inappropriate today as it was when it was filed in 1997, and the Good Foods Institute is mistaken for trying to revive those old arguments today," Mulhern said.

He added, "Nothing has happened in the intervening time period to allow the combination of soy powder, water, emulsifiers, stabilizers, sugar, sodium and added vitamins to magically become milk. Regardless of what food technologists might try, milk still only comes from mammals."

The Good Food Institute is a young organization that promotes plant-based foods, which mostly replace animal-based foods. In a blog posting, the Good Food Institute stated the legal debate over the definition of dairy, "just might change the fridge of the future." The group added that the opposition to calling plant-based products "milk" is just the dairy industry "lashing out at its increasingly popular competition."

The FDA's standard of identity for milk is the lacteal secretions of a mammal, but in 1997 the Soyfoods Association asked for recognition of "soymilk." The FDA has not acted on that petition, but it also has not prosecuted companies for using the term.

The Soyfoods Association wrote FDA's acting commissioner in February about the topic after Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., introduced legislation to prevent plant-based foods from being called "milk." Several House members also have written the FDA to enforce the standard defining milk.

Noting that the Administrative Procedures Act requires agencies to respond to petitions in a timely manner and that tension between the plant-based and dairy industries have heated up, the Good Food Institute said, "More than 20 years later, we think the FDA has had enough time to respond to SFA's request, and it should put an end to the dairy industry's bullying of plant-based competition by clarifying its position."

"GFI is not only asking FDA to allow the term 'soymilk' to stand," the group said in a letter. "We're asking that the FDA codify its existing practice of allowing food producers to use common names that consumers recognize to describe plant-based milk, cheese, and yogurt — names like almond milk, cashew cheese, and coconut yogurt."

GFI added, "If FDA acts in violation of the First Amendment by restricting use of the term 'soy milk,' or related terms, we will sue," the group said.

GFI policy director Jessica Almy said, "FDA should make clear that companies can label plant-based foods using terms that consumers know and understand. The dairy industry has been bullying its plant-based competition for too long. FDA should send a strong signal that it's putting the interests of consumers first in its response to this petition."

"The Soyfoods Association of North America appreciates the support expressed today by the Good Food Institute for 'soymilk,'" John Cox, the executive director of the association told The Hagstrom Report in an email.

"We are in agreement that the FDA has an opportunity to amend federal regulations to allow using the common and usual term of 'soymilk,' particularly since this term is what has been used by consumers for many years now," Cox said. "The FDA would serve consumers well by moving to formalize the use of the term 'soy milk' in its regulations, and we hope to see action on this front shortly."

Mulhern counters that allowing manufacturers of imitation dairy foods to use defined terms such as milk, cheese or yogurt "falsely suggests that the products are nutritionally equivalent. They are not. This is a transparent attempt to profit from milk's good name by emulating the wording, but not the superior nutrition, of our products. It is misleading and deceptive to allow these nutritionally inferior imitators to use our hard-won reputation to their advantage," Mulhern said.

Mulhern added, "What's more, this request is not only inconsistent with U.S. food standards, it's also inconsistent with regulations used by most other nations, which don't allow plant-based imitators to co-op dairy-specific terms."

DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton contributed to this report.

He can be reached at chris.clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN

(BAS/SK)

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