Non-dairy products such as soy milk and almond milk may not be able to label themselves as “milk” anymore, federal regulators announced this week.
Non-dairy products such as soy milk and almond milk may not be able to label themselves as “milk” anymore, federal regulators announced this week.
As noted by The New York Post, milk is defined as coming from the “milking of one or more healthy cows,” according to federal rules, and soy milk and almond milk do not fall under this category.
This often-unenforced rule is one of many listed by the FDA for mandating how certain names of products must be identified. The FDA abides by “standards of identity” when determining how manufacturers can label their products, according to PBS. Federal standards define milk as the result of the “milking of one or two healthy cows.” Soy, almond, and other milks are created without the use of dairy.
“Mammals produce milk, plants don’t,” as Jim Mulhern, president of the National Milk Producers Federation, said last year.
Commissioner Scott Gottlieb of the FDA said on Tuesday that we have not been “enforcing our own standard of identity” by letting these rules go unenforced, according to the Post.
This announcement comes on the tail of similar disputes about alternative food products, which have been gaining popularity in recent years.
On the other side, the Plant-Based Foods Association argues that the FDA’s strict naming guidelines were adopted to prevent lower-quality dairy products from edging out products made entirely with dairy. For example, FDA standards of identity would prevent a carton of watered-down milk product from being labeled as milk. This would prevent cheaper, lower-quality alternatives from edging out real milk.
This is not what plant-based food producers are trying to do with their products, the PBFA argued in a press release. They assert that non-dairy milks are clearly labeled as such and that consumers are specifically seeking out these products because they don’t include dairy.
The Good Food Institute, an advocate for plant-based alternatives, says the term “milk” should be allowed for non-dairy drinks “for the same reason that you can have gluten-free bread and rice noodles.”
Changes to the industry are not expected to happen overnight, however. The FDA must first notify the companies of these products, and ask for a public comment. Those notifications are likely to be issued in about a year.
