Dive Brief:
- The Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that promotes plant-based dairy and meat alternatives, has sued the FDA. GFI's complaint includes four counts related to the agency allegedly maintaining varying stances on use of the term "soy milk" and its failure to comply with deadlines for FOIA requests.
- The dispute dates back nearly two decades when the Soyfoods Association of America allegedly requested the FDA's formal recognition of the term "soy milk" as the common name for "liquid food derived from the cooking and processing of whole soybeans with water." The FDA did not respond, but the FDA and industry used the term going forward.
- However, the agency issued warning letters to California companies in 2008 and 2012 for their use of the term "soy milk" because the product does not contain dairy milk. "This has resulted in consumer confusion and an uneven competitive landscape," GFI stated in its complaint.
Dive Insight:
The dairy industry has allegedly been involved in this dispute. Though not a party to the lawsuit, the "National Milk Producers Federation and several dairy state senators allegedly sent letters urging the FDA to enforce the standards of its warning letters in 2010 and 2012," Courthouse News Service reported.
The "milk" common meaning argument resembles another recent determination by the FDA. The agency ruled that the term "evaporated cane juice" was misleading in part because use of the word "juice" is confusingly similar to the more common meaning of "juice," which refers to liquid extracted from fruits and vegetables. Here, dairy milk producers could argue the same for "milk" in conjunction with "soy milk."
However, such a decision would impact manufacturers beyond soy milk, including all plant-based milk producers, such as almond, coconut, rice, cashew, and pea-based milk, in addition to cheeses and other products made from those plant-based milks.
While many plant-based dairy alternatives still come from the startup level, larger producers like WhiteWave Foods have made plant-based dairy alternatives a significant part of their portfolio.