Words matter. You wouldn’t purposely call someone the wrong name, would you? No, because it’s rude. You wouldn’t label water as wine, would you? No, because it’s obviously illegal. You wouldn’t label almond juice as milk, would you? Well... 

 

The plant-based alternative industry continues to tell us that dairy terms should be held to a different standard because everyone knows the difference and consumers are not confused. On the contrary, our studies find that consumers, who often do not even know where their food comes from, do not understand the difference.

Many look at the mislabeled plant-based alternatives and do not know that they don’t contain dairy because they are labeled with dairy terms. Folks do not understand what is in their food because of this mislabeling, and it is a hazard that should not be tolerated. Yet that is what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the government agency charged with food safety, continues to allow.

 

Edge was delighted to hear Dr. Robert Califf, the head of the FDA, tell senators in February that “(there) is almost nothing more fundamental about safety than people understanding exactly what they’re ingesting.” We agree. 

 

FDA is expected to release its guidelines for the labeling of plant-based dairy alternatives any day now. We conveyed our concerns about the plant-based industry using dairy terms when we met with FDA’s  top food labeling officials in March (pictured below). The agency officials asked good questions and understood our concerns and the meeting was productive. 

 

Edge and the wider dairy industry have worked tirelessly to explain why the correct usage of dairy terms is important, but as the precedent for widespread mislabeling has been set, we remain concerned FDA will double down and continue the status quo. 

 

Pushing the agency to follow its own regulations is not the only avenue to protecting the integrity of dairy terms. We have many champions of our efforts in Congress, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who is trying to get a bill passed on this issue and regularly asks the FDA for answers on why mislabeling is allowed to continue. We remain committed to working with our federal officials to end this once and for all, ensuring customers are not misled and imitation products are not allowed to market their nutritionally inferior products using the good name that dairy has built with generations of hard work.