Is foie gras legal in California? Judge’s ruling leaves chefs, diners confused.
The sevenyear legal battle over foie gras sales in California took a complicated turn Tuesday, when a federal judge stated that Californians can legally buy the fattened duck liver delicacy so long as the product and transaction were made outofstate.
Several news outlets initially reported that the ruling would result in significant changes to the sale of foie gras in California. Foie gras purveyors in New York and Canada began celebrating by immediately adding sales channels to their websites for customers in California. But multiple lawyers say the initial foie gras ban always allowed for individual consumers to purchase it outofstate and bring it into California to enjoy at home.
Instead, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson has actually made the situation more confusing, said Jonathan Lovvorn, chief counsel for animal protection litigation at the Humane Society.
“The place where this gets tricky going forward is if you’re sitting in
L.A. and you get online and buy foie gras from an outofstate producer with your credit card,” Lovvorn said. “It depends. That’s why it’s confusing.”
The ruling doesn’t change the stakes in restaurants: California businesses still can’t sell foie gras. Chefs also can’t give it away as a free “gift,” according to a 2019 ruling against Napa restaurant La Toque, a major proponent of the fatty liver. There have been no rulings about another loophole some restaurants have attempted in the past, where customers bring in their own foie gras and pay a chef to prepare it — but such action would likely draw the attention of animal rights activists.
“We are hopeful that California restaurants and retailers understand that yesterday’s decision really doesn’t change anything for them, and that selling foie gras is illegal, period,” said Kelsey Eberly, staff attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
But formally allowing individual California residents to buy foie gras at all is still a victory for Ariane Daguin, CEO of D’Artagnan, a New York distributor of foie gras who has been part of the ongoing legal battle. A 2019 ruling made her feel like it was unwise to try selling to Californians, but now she has introduced sales through D’Artagnan’s website.
“This is the first part. The second part is to go after the ban altogether because right now it’s ridiculous that Californians aren’t allowed to produce their own foie gras but they can consume the one that comes from out of state,” she said.
Lovvorn, however, thinks foie gras purveyors are “overly optimistic” about whether their online sales transactions will be lawful.
“If I was either intending to buy foie gras for personal use or intending to sell it to California consumers, I’d want to talk to my lawyers carefully about that,” he said. “This ruling is not a free pass.”
California’s ban on foie gras, which is made by forcefeeding ducks or geese, went into effect in 2004 and forced the state’s only foie gras producer to shut down. A repeal in 2015 briefly brought the fatty liver back on menus, but rulings in 2017 and 2019 upheld the ban.
The attorney general’s office said it was reviewing the decision, according to the Associated Press, and PETA is urging the attorney general to file an appeal.