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Dairy industry launches clarification campaign
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Chances are you’ve never stopped at your grocery store’s dairy case, baffled by the difference between “soy” and “2%” milk. But the dairy industry says consumers are confused — and it’s launched a war to clarify the facts for them.
Industry-backed bills in Congress have recently sought to ban the makers of plant-based products from using the terms “milk,” “cheese” or “yogurt.”
In December, dairy lobbyists persuaded 32 congressmen to demand that the Food and Drug Administration act on “imitation milk products.”
Those efforts join pre-existing initiatives, like a special logo that differentiates “real” dairy and a series of cutesy, industry-funded ads that champion milk over nondairy competitors.
Now, as plant-based product sales continue to soar, Big Milk is ramping up its lobbying efforts against the companies that it says have misappropriated milk’s good name. And the fledgling plant-based food lobby has promised to do the same.
The Good Food Institute hired its first lobbyist. The Plant-Based Food Association, a trade group, has met with the FDA.
“The dairy industry is behind this, and they’ve got it all wrong,” said GFI’s policy director, Nicole Negowetti.
Consumption of conventional milk has been cratering since the 1950s, a product of both modern concerns about fat and the explosion of consumer beverage options after World War II. In more recent years, sales of first soy milk, and later almond, cashew, rice, coconut and quinoa milks, have steadily eaten into dairy milk’s already shrinking market share. According to Nielsen, almond milk sales grew 250 percent from 2011 to 2016, a period when the milk market shrank by $1 billion.
The dairy industry is not exactly imperiled by this: Yogurt and cheese sales are both up, and much of America’s fluid milk gets turned into them.
But the industry still argues that the situation is unfair.
Under FDA regulations, products labeled milk or cheese or yogurt must meet specific ingredient and composition rules.
Those range from the obvious — such as the oft-referenced milk is “the lacteal secretion” of cows — to more obscure requirements on the presence of additives and emulsifiers. A product like Velveeta cannot be called cheese, for instance. But several vegan companies label their products “cheese,” even when they’re made from additives, oils and flours.
On top of that, dairy milks have a standardized nutritional profile; plantbased milks vary widely.
“The idea that dairy industry has to play by the rules and others don’t is part of the frustration,” said Beth Briczinski, vice president for Dairy Foods & Nutrition at the National Milk Producers Federation, or NMPF, the industry group that has led the charge against the FDA.
The other part of the frustration is that the FDA has repeatedly declined to weigh in on the subject — despite pressure from the soybean and dairy lobbies.
A spokesperson for the FDA said that the agency’s policy has not changed, and that it prioritizes efforts to ensure that food labels are “truthful and not misleading.” Its last action on the milk issue was a brief aside in a much longer 2012 warning letter to a tofu company.
Unsatisfied, however, the industry has ramped up its legislative efforts, hoping to force the FDA to act.
NMPF’s political action committee increased its donations in the 2016 election cycle, as did that of the International Dairy Foods Association. In Dec., 27 of the lawmakers who had received NMPF or IDFA PAC donations signed a letter to the FDA, demanding that it “initiate a thorough investigation” into plant-based food labeling.
A month after that, NMPF consulted on twin bills in the House and Senate, which would likewise force the FDA to punish plant-based products that use dairy terms.
They have both been referred to committee. It is unclear if either bill will get a hearing. But now that the issue is out in the open, both sides have promised to fight hard to pull lawmakers to their side — and, if necessary, to reach out to the public.
“I don’t want to reveal my whole strategy to the dairy people,” said Michele Simon, executive director of the Plant-Based Food Association. “But we are rallying our members to oppose this.”
Simon and others in the plant camp argue that consumers aren’t confused by nondairy milks; on the contrary, she argues, most people who buy almond or cashew or coconut milk do it because they know it doesn’t come from cows or have the same nutrition. Their feeling is that “milk” is a functional term. If FDA chooses to set new rules for plant-based foods, Simon said, they shouldn’t come at the behest of the dairy industry.
At the end of the day, that’s the real issue: How industry influences the agency meant to regulate it.
Prior to starting the Plant-Based Food Association, Simon — a lawyer who has long worked with progressive food groups — wrote a book on the food industry’s political influence, titled “Appetite for Profit.” In it, she argues that “Big Food” has turned the legislative and regulatory processes to its own end.
The irony is that Simon has since joined the political fray: In September, PBFA met with the FDA to discuss questions around plantbased food labeling, and it has hired Elizabeth Kucinich — the organic food activist and wife of former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich — to make its case against the dairy bills to politicians.
Meanwhile, the American Soybean Association and the Soyfoods Association of North America jointly sent a letter to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee opposing the House and Senate dairy bills.
Which faction will win is anyone’s guess. But it might not matter: Several dairyfree brands, including Daiya, have already done away with some dairy labels without affecting their bottom line. Daiya simply calls its cheeses “shreds,” “slices” or “blocks.”
“Dairy-free consumers are well-educated,” said Michael Lynch, the company’s vice president of marketing. “They read labels ... We know consumers get it.”