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Fake Milk Guidance Generates NMPF Push

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

As a summer deadline for FDA guidance on the labeling of plant-based alternatives approaches, NMPF staff have been in communications with key administration officials and Capitol Hill lawmakers pressing to ensure transparency and integrity in the use of dairy terms and labeling – all the while maintaining the public drumbeat for positive change.

NMPF leadership held a call with FDA and administration officials May 16, discussing dairy’s main arguments for an FDA guidance that reaffirms the agency’s own commitment to enforcing its standards of identity for product labels, which in the case of milk is clearly defined as a dairy product. Allies on Capitol Hill are also being engaged to keep pressure on FDA to stand up for consumers and end the marketplace confusion over the nutritional value of plant-based vs. dairy products.

And finally, NMPF has been devoting its recent Dairy Defined columns to the issue, focusing on FDA commissioner support for labeling integrity as well as instances in FDA’s own history in which it’s properly defended dairy terms, underscoring that a better approach is possible. NMPF looks forward to a positive outcome on the issue, and is prepared to respond to whatever guidance is offered.

FDA Guidance an Opportunity to Get Labeling Right

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

As a promised summer deadline for U.S. Food & Drug Administration guidance on the labeling of plant-based alternatives approaches, dairy farmers and the entire industry are readying for a milestone in the decades-long effort we’ve led to ensuring integrity in marketplace labeling of dairy products. The news could be good for consumers, or it could be insufficient for their needs – the agency has been very tight-lipped in our conversations with them.

But after more than four decades of advocacy on this issue, we at NMPF aren’t getting too worked up about any gossip, whether or not it’s favorable to consumer and dairy interests. Why are we so serene in the midst of the Washington rumor mill? With apologies to an old political truism, “It’s the facts, stupid.” The facts are on our side, and regardless of plant-based marketing whims or FDA’s thus-far history of ambivalence on this issue, facts matter. That’s why we know that, regardless of the details any guidance may contain, we won’t accept anything less than full labeling transparency as we continue to focus on this issue. The problem of nutritional confusion is too significant for consumers and medical professionals to ignore, and labeling integrity is too near and dear to our hearts to accept anything other than a fairer, more transparent marketplace for all.

So, as we wait on FDA, a few things to keep in mind:

  • FDA’s own leadership has shown it understands and accepts our core point – that the current Wild West approach to labeling doesn’t work for consumers or a fair marketplace. Current Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, as well as predecessors Dr. Stephen Hahn and Dr. Scott Gottlieb, have all acknowledged the problem of nutritional confusion, as explained by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations. Ignoring the problem isn’t an option when it’s been repeatedly acknowledged as a problem.
  • True, robust enforcement of standards of identity is possible – FDA itself has already demonstrated that, no matter what a plant-based advocate may argue. The examples aren’t as numerous as they would be absent FDA’s practiced ambivalence on the matter, but as recently as 2011 FDA has stood up against mislabeling of plant-based products with dairy terms. The rules themselves have never been the problem – bureaucratic inertia has. FDA has a golden opportunity to boost its own credibility by standing up for transparent and non-misleading labeling.
  • An agency’s statement of guidance policy can’t replace a regulation, under the Administrative Procedure Act. Any FDA guidance that’s dissonant with its own standards – and those aren’t changing – isn’t worth the pixels it’s downloaded with. Wiser heads should know that, and for the sake of FDA’s own credibility, they need to prevail.
  • The reasons above are only a few of the litany of reasons labeling integrity is essential. Consumer surveys show rampant confusion over the nutritional content of dairy products versus plant-based imitators; the United States is a global outlier in its lax approach to how dairy terms in labeling; and the proper use of dairy terms has deep support among lawmakers in Congress – as it has for generations, as evidenced by the Butter Act, the only Congressionally written standard of identity.
  • And finally, one more time, to quote former Commissioner Gottlieb: “An almond doesn’t lactate.”

For those reasons and others, we’re anxiously awaiting the guidance document. With decades of experience and advocacy under our belts, we’re ready for this. FDA has a chance to start afresh and reaffirm its mission to protect consumers – not a bad option for a currently embattled agency. And if, for whatever specious reasons, the guidance isn’t the reaffirmation it needs to be? Then we redouble our efforts, with strengthened resolve and an awareness that facts don’t change, and consumer needs don’t go away.

Our energy on this topic is boundless, and we never shy from the chance to do what’s right. We hope FDA feels the same as we do – for the sake of consumers, it needs to. And with that, we’re looking forward to what the agency has to say.

NMPF’s Castaneda on Dairy Trade With Canada

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

 

Jaime Castaneda, NMPF’s Executive Vice President for Policy Development & Strategy, discusses Canada’s lack of willingness to honor its dairy commitments under USMCA on RFD-TV. A dispute resolution panel under the trade agreement has found Canada’s system of allocating access to its dairy market to the U.S. in violation of the deal. NMPF is urging an aggressive U.S. response.

NMPF’s Morris on Infant Formula Shortage

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

 

NMPF Senior Vice President for Trade Shawna Morris discusses the current nationwide infant formula shortage and ways to solve the immediate crisis, speaking with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. While temporary import increases can help alleviate short-term shortages, current problems involve supply-chain shortfalls doesn’t reflect a lack of inputs, she said: “The milk, the ingredients, that the plant would need in order to produce formula, no challenge there. Instead, what we have is a problem more on the processing capacity piece.”

U.S. Dairy Supports New USDA Container Program for Ag Exports

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) today welcomed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) announcement to offer additional support to American agriculture exporters through the new Commodity Container Assistance Program (CCAP). The initiative will provide funding from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) to exporters to reduce the costs of sourcing containers at the Oakland and Seattle-Tacoma ‘pop-up’ port locations.

“Dairy producers and other agriculture exporters have been clamoring for relief from these ocean shipping challenges for nearly two years,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “While we continue to seek solutions from the carriers and from Congress, these steps by USDA demonstrate their understanding of our industry’s challenges. We feel they are positive, focused investments that will offer immediate relief to our dairy exporting cooperatives.”

“We are grateful to see Secretary Vilsack and USDA taking a leadership role in addressing these port and ocean freight challenges that dairy producers are facing. I am impressed with the speed and innovative approach with which USDA has moved this pop-up concept into operation,” said Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC. “We will continue working with USDA and its interagency partners in pursuing solutions to the supply chain challenges that impact the bottom line of dairy exporters and the U.S. workers and foreign consumers who rely upon American dairy exports.”

As port terminal operations have become congested and ocean carriers have prioritized shipping empty containers back to Asia from west coast ports, agriculture exporters have struggled to obtain containers from the carriers, to secure reliable vessel bookings, and to overcome obstacles to delivering goods to the ports to meet vessel departures timelines. The pop-up sites are intended to offer off-terminal locations for empty container storage, increasing access for agriculture shippers to use them and freeing up port terminal space for freight operations. At the pop-up sites, exporters can transload their commodities into the containers (both dry and reefer) and store them on property until the vessel booking earliest return dates are announced, enabling more efficient drayage delivery to the ports. The FSA’s payments will help to cover the costs of moving the containers between the ports and the pop-up yards, as well as the storage at the pop-up site.

NMPF and USDEC are working with USDA to identify key port locations, including at inland terminals, to replicate the pop-up initiative.

U.S. Dairy Supports U.S. Government’s Pursuit of Full Canadian USMCA Compliance

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) today applauded the Biden administration for its initiation of a second U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) dispute panel concerning Canada’s ongoing refusal to meet its USMCA dairy trade obligations.

The first USMCA dispute panel launched by the U.S. government determined in January that Canada was in violation of the agreement’s dairy tariff-rate quota (TRQ) provisions. On May 16, Canada published as final its revised USMCA dairy TRQ approach, which failed to fix its USMCA-violating practices. To address the additional problems Canada’s revised approach has raised and to defend the integrity of the agreement, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office has brought an additional case.

“Prime Minister Trudeau regularly pledges Canada supports a rules-based global order built on cooperation and partnership, yet Canada continues to flout these trade commitments and plays games rather than meet its signed treaty commitments,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “Dairy farmers appreciate USTR’s continued dedication to aggressively pursuing the full market access expansion into the Canadian market that USMCA was intended to deliver. At the same time, given Canada’s history of persistent violations and the high likelihood Ottawa will once again disregard its USMCA obligations, USTR and USDA must be prepared to deploy the strongest-possible retaliatory measures envisioned under the USMCA should this ‘whack-a-mole’ approach continue. Canada’s actions must have consequences.”

“USTR and USDA have shown dogged determination to uphold USMCA despite Ottawa’s clear refusal to engage in real reform to come into compliance with the agreement,” said Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC. “Dairy farmers and processors appreciate the clear bipartisan commitment from both the Administration and Congress for enforcing the USMCA and insisting on getting the full export benefits the United States so painstakingly negotiated. If we allow Canada to simply ignore its clear obligations, it will set a dangerous and damaging precedent for future trade disputes that will reach far beyond the millions of jobs supported by the American dairy industry.”

Canada’s updated TRQ system continues to block key stakeholders in the Canadian food and agriculture sector, including retailers, from accessing the TRQs, using an allocation method that provides inequitable advantages to Canadian dairy processors, and fails to employ good regulatory practices to encourage effective use of the TRQs allocated to a given company.

Dairy Groups Welcome IPEF, Seek Prioritization of Market Access Provisions

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) welcomed the announced launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) today and the opportunity it offers to strengthen ties with key trading partners across the Asia-Pacific region.

Exports are exceptionally important to the U.S. dairy industry. The United States exported $7.75 billion in dairy products worldwide in 2021, equivalent to approximately 17% of total U.S. milk production.

“Today marks an essential first step on what will surely be a complex journey,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “But to successfully compete in the Asia-Pacific region and meet their demand for dairy, we ultimately need a level playing field. That means tackling both tariff and nontariff barriers that weigh down the ability of U.S. dairy exporters to keep pace with EU and Oceania competitors that have successfully negotiated agreements across the region. We support USTR’s launch of IPEF and look forward to partnering with the Administration on it as talks proceed. As that commences, I urge the Biden Administration to set specific time frames for IPEF negotiations so that it can deliver meaningful results for American dairy farmers. We cannot afford another Trans-Pacific Partnership-type outcome in which we negotiate for six years only to walk away from the final result, leaving our exporters no further down the road than where we started.”

“IPEF offers a chance for the United States to have a positive impact on the trading environment in a vital area of the world,” said Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC. “The Asia-Pacific region is an important destination for U.S. dairy exports and offers impressive prospects for continued growth and expansion thanks to growing consumer demand for the type of high-quality products the U.S. produces so well. If IPEF is crafted to include meaningful market access improvements and address non-tariff barriers, then these regional trends will help drive economic benefits for American farmers, dairy manufacturers and industry workers for decades to come.”

Dozens of members of Congress from both parties have underscored to the administration the importance of securing market access gains in IPEF. On March 30, a bipartisan group of 87 House members urged the Administration to prioritize agriculture in IPEF negotiations and outlined examples of both tariff and nontariff results that should be pursued. On May 9, two dozen Senate Republicans wrote to Ambassador Tai and Secretary Vilsack to urge the inclusion of market access and enforceable commitments in IPEF.

While supporting the use of IPEF and other targeted trade tools to advance exports, USDEC and NMPF have been unyielding in their call for once again pursuing comprehensive trade agreements around the world, and especially in the Asia-Pacific region, where competitors like the EU and Oceania have been especially active.

USDEC and NMPF filed comments on the IPEF trade agreement on April 11. The filing noted, “NMPF and USDEC’s priority and strong preference is the pursuit of comprehensive trade agreements to establish lasting trade barrier reductions on both the tariff and nontariff fronts. Recognizing that the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) is not likely to be such an agreement, we nevertheless urge the Administration to seek to eliminate or reduce both tariff and nontariff barriers to U.S. dairy exports through the IPEF.”

FDA’s Proven It Can Do Its Job On Fake Milk – It Can Do It Again

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

With FDA guidance expected on the proper labeling of plant-based milk alternatives sometime this summer, it’s worth noting – even if seemingly for the millionth time – that this isn’t a tough call, no matter what plant-based lobbyists would tell you.

The FDA’s own standards define milk as an animal product. The agency charged with protecting the public health should, you know, protect the public health from well-documented consumer confusion over nutritional content. And if anyone tells you that it’s just too difficult for FDA to do that – that straw-grasping arguments about First Amendment speech protections and the proliferation of plant-based beverages are just too overwhelming for the agency to do its own job – remember this: FDA has already enforced labeling integrity. Multiple times.

For the record: Before it decided that plant-based beverages were just too numerous (or litigious, perhaps?) to do anything about, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration used to stand up to its own mission. On Jan. 23, 1981, FDA warned a soy-product manufacturer that “The statement ‘soybean milk’ has not been sanctioned as an acceptable identity statement for such a mixture as water, soybean, wheat and seaweed by this agency,” adding that there is not “a clear and uniform understanding of what ‘soybean milk’ is in this country.”

The 1980s were a feisty time for fighting food fakes. On Sept. 29, 1983, FDA wrote a research institute in Singapore to say “we have not recognized the term ‘soy milk’ as a common or usual name or appropriately descriptive term for statements of identity or ingredient designations of any food. As a result, we would object to any soy product entering this country that was labeled as ‘soy milk.’” A similar letter to South Korea in 1985 stated, “The names ‘soymilk’ and ‘vegetable milk’ are not acceptable identity statements for these products. The product may be called ‘soy drink’ or ‘soy beverage.’”

Chalk up dairy-label integrity as another reason to be nostalgic for Ronald Reagan. But before you dismiss seemingly ancient agency actions as part of a now-unrelatable era of high inflation, disputes over what’s taught in schools, and tensions with Russia (um, wait a second), note FDA’s letter of June 29, 2011. In that one, the agency told a sports-drink manufacturer that its “Muscle Milk” product line was misleading because its products “do not conform to the standard of identity for milk.”

Fake-milk enforcement isn’t merely a relic of Reagan’s FDA. It was part of President Barack Obama’s as well. But of course, consumers all know that “Muscle Milk” isn’t really made of muscles – right? According to FDA’s own actions, that’s not enough. Milk ain’t muscles, even though it builds them. It also ain’t almonds, or oats, or soy, or …

You get the picture. So why doesn’t FDA? Given the agency’s recent track record, it’s fair to say its years of inaction creates nervousness over what it might do next. Any attempt to justify previous non-enforcement by saying “but we haven’t been enforcing it” is flat-out wrong – the record shows it. And any argument that says “time has established a new usage while we’ve done nothing” isn’t just untrue, it insults the FDA officials who did stand up for integrity.

FDA could use some of that these days. Consumers could use some too. While we’re at it, the whole world could use a big dose of integrity (along with copious quantities of high-nutrition, true dairy products). And it’s not impossible. We’ve seen it before. Maybe someday — maybe soon – we can see it again.

NMPF’s Bjerga on White House Nutrition Conference

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

 

NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the planned White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health later this year, the first major White House conference on nutrition in more than 50 years. Bjerga discusses the changes in U.S. nutrition and nutrition policy during that time, and how keeping dairy’s place in diets prominent is critical toward ensuring a healthy, hunger-free future for the United States, on WEKZ radio.

FDA Commissioners Agree: Nutrition’s a Problem for Plant-Based Faux Dairy

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

It’s easy to become numb to the over-polished signaling that often passes as discourse in Washington, but sometimes reading things closely reveals interesting nuggets that show how an official is weighing a decision or perceiving an issue.

Example: an exchange between FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin at a recent Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. Baldwin chairs the Senate subcommittee that sets spending levels at FDA — the sort of thing that would make an FDA commissioner pay attention. And when she asked him for his thoughts on how plant-based beverages that masquerade as dairy products should be labeled, he noted that when people think about dairy vs. plant-based beverages, they “are not very equipped to deal with what’s the nutritional value” of the products.

In other words, confusion over the nutritional values of dairy versus plant-based beverages is real.

This isn’t the first time an FDA commissioner has acknowledged the problem of nutritional confusion, which has gained attention well beyond the dairy farmers who create high-quality nutrition every day. From the American Academy of Pediatrics to the School Nutrition Association and others, concerns over the public-health impacts of consumers substituting dairy with nutritionally inferior plant-based products are widespread and well-known.

That’s why Califf’s predecessor, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said in his confirmation hearing that “clear, transparent, and understandable labeling for the American people” was necessary “so that they can make the appropriate decisions for their health and for their nutrition.” That’s why Hahn’s predecessor, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, expressed concern that consumers were being “misled” by plant-based beverages and asked whether consumers “who are using plant-based milk products by seeing the word ‘milk’ imputing a certain nutritional value into that beverage that they’re not deriving?”

And that’s why Gottlieb’s predecessor, who was … wait. Gottlieb’s predecessor was Califf. But you get the picture.

The problem of nutritional confusion, also borne out by consumer surveys, isn’t even controversial at FDA, at least not among its political leadership. The only thing that’s been controversial, apparently, is FDA staff doing something to address the problem. But hope springs eternal, as well as opportunities for action. With long-promised guidance on dairy terms and plant-based beverages due this summer, federal policy has a chance to align with the words of its top officials, by finally creating the labeling integrity consumers deserve.

Doing the wrong thing – essentially preserving the Wild West status quo of plant-based peddlers flouting the FDA’s own rules – will mean little, as federal courts have ruled that guidance policy pronouncements can’t replace regulation, and at the root of current regulation is FDA’s own standard of identity, which clearly identifies milk (the building block of all dairy products) as an animal product.

But doing the right thing – advocating for consumers, promoting transparency in labeling and reinforcing the nutritional importance of those standards – would help restore FDA’s credibility as a consumer advocate and its reputation for public health leadership. And let’s face it, FDA isn’t having the easiest time these days.

The path is clear. The door is open. All FDA needs to do is walk through it and fix what its leaders already know is a problem. And we know they know it. Because they’ve said it themselves.