Tag: dairy labeling

Proper Preparation Perpetuates Progress on Plant-Based Labeling

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The late-February release of proposed FDA guidance on the labeling of plant-based beverages is far from what dairy producers want or consumers deserve.

The agency’s justification of terms including “almond milk,” “soy milk” and other terms as commonly accepted relies on circular reasoning, using its previous non-enforcement of its standards of identity to justify further inattention. And as guidance, the portion that does improve the consumer marketplace – front-of-packaging disclosures by plant-based beverages of their inferiority to dairy – does not have the same strength as regulation. FDA can “guide” a manufacturer, but company disclosures are voluntary. The good news is that most companies follow such voluntary guidance for fear of bad publicity or legal challenges.

As such, FDA’s proposal contains a major win for dairy: the acknowledgment that consumer confusion over nutritional content is a public health issue that requires agency intervention. For nearly a decade, that’s been NMPF’s core argument against the mislabeling of plant-based beverages. And by accepting it, FDA has laid the groundwork for our work toward the logical conclusion of the need to end nutritional confusion: Reserving the use of dairy terms for dairy products only, in keeping with FDA’s own standards of identity. We’re on the right path, and FDA’s guidance can directly contribute to our own eventual success.

A bit of background: Three decades into what’s been a more than four-decade struggle to get FDA to take this issue seriously, in the early 2010s, the issue was in an unsatisfying stasis. NMPF would complain, and nothing would happen. Meanwhile, plant-based imposters were proliferating in the marketplace, to the detriment of public health. Beginning in 2015, we at NMPF zeroed in on the real issue of nutritional confusion – dismissing the plant-based red herring that “consumers know it’s not dairy, they’re not confused” to more accurately describe what “confusion” really meant: the mistaken belief that plant-based beverages provided the same level of nutritional benefits as real dairy.

We hammered that point home at every opportunity, to the extent that, when then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb was asked about nutritional confusion in a 2018 hearing, he had been informed enough about the issue to make his famous “confession”: “An almond doesn’t lactate, I will confess.”

With that acknowledgment we pushed even harder. Through quality submissions to an FDA comment period on the issue, through constant attention to the issue through the media, through tough questions from dairy’s allies in congressional hearings, we helped FDA – and importantly, consumers, who in 2022 drank a lower volume of plant-based beverages than the year before – understand the importance of the issue. We offered our own road map on labeling through a 2019 Citizen’s Petition. And with allies including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the School Nutrition Association, we showed it wasn’t just dairy that cared about consumer confusion – education and health professionals did as well.

And that brought us to last week. While FDA clearly wanted to cover over its decades-long failure to enforce existing standards by giving the plant-based folks the ability to use “milk,” the nutrition disclosure recommendations and the acceptance of nutritional confusion as a public health issue are powerful tools with which we can move forward in pursuit of full transparency. First of all, FDA’s concern for the issue adds impetus for what’s now the most promising immediate solution to the problem – congressional passage of the DAIRY PRIDE Act, which would require FDA to enforce milk’s standard of identity in the name of solving the very problem it’s identified.

Second, though FDA guidance is non-binding, as I’ve noted, it’s something industry takes seriously. We will be watching corporate practice on labels – and we won’t accept labeling that ignores FDA’s guidance or clearly attempts to do as little possible to get by. The plant-based industry is built on misinformation, and we expect old habits to die hard. But we’re in a new landscape, and we’ll make sure that consumers gain maximum benefit from the changed regulatory environment by reminding them of the nutritional inferiority of various fake milks.

This journey is far from complete. FDA has opened a comment period on the guidance that’s open until April 24. We have a call to action here that allows you to tell the agency not to backslide on its guidance, and in fact to go further to protect consumers. Momentum is on our side, and it’s gratifying to see an approach we consciously understood nearly a decade ago yield benefits that will only increase.

But it’s not time to let up on the gas, as our work is far from complete. We’ll take what FDA has offered. And we’ll make it even better in the future.

Jim Mulhern

President & CEO, NMPF

 

Taking a stand for true dairy products

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

By Clay Detlefsen, Senior Vice President for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, NMPF.

It’s a tale that’s lasted decades too long. Plant-based companies continue to use dairy terms on their products, violating labeling laws as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to look the other way. But now a new kid has entered the conversation: synthetic “dairy” products that claim to be “animal-free,” yet worthy of a dairy name.

Synthetic dairy proteins are made in the lab by taking a section of a DNA sequence, programming or genetically modifying yeast and microflora with a specific DNA sequence and then using a precision fermentation to replicate it. The end product is a single whey protein, that’s then used to make products that companies are touting as dairy. That’s similar to the playbook the plant-based industry has run for years – and as research shows, it creates a false equivalence among consumers.

However, these companies aren’t making actual dairy, like milk, cheese and ice cream. Dairy foods are extremely complex. They offer essential nutrients, numerous high-quality proteins, micronutrients, and hundreds of fatty acids, all of which interact with each other to deliver one of the most nutritious foods in the marketplace. Creating a single synthetic dairy protein and mixing it with other ingredients to make a synthetic food product – the method currently being developed for commercial products – doesn’t creating anything approaching the complexity of actual dairy.

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) has been calling on FDA to enforce its own standards of identity for dairy for decades. This has included numerous meetings, comments, filing a Citizen Petition, and sending letters to the FDA Ombudsman. Last March, FDA sent Draft Guidance for Industry on the Labeling of Plant-based Milk Alternatives and Voluntary Nutrient Statements to the Office of Management and Budget. That document has yet to be released. In the meantime, we continue the fight for labeling integrity, for dairy farmers and for consumers.

NMPF’s largest concern with the misuse of dairy terms are the nutritional issues that have arisen in recent years from the use of plant-based beverages as alternative nutrition sources, especially in children. Because of plant-based products not following the labeling laws and using dairy terms on their products, consumers are assuming that they offer the same nutrient package as dairy products, which is inaccurate. In the most critical of cases, it has led to nutritional deficiency diseases like Kwashiorkor and rickets.

NMPF for decades has been baffled by why FDA has not enforced its rules, especially given that it results in human health harm.  Recently, FDA issued a new standard of identity for yogurt: In that rulemaking, FDA specifically calls out the importance of standards. But it seems FDA only cares about such standards when it comes to a real dairy product; with plant-based (and soon, we worry, lab-based) imitators, a Wild West mentality has prevailed. The inconsistency is frustrating. What they have been doing by allowing plant-based food companies to break all the labeling rules is simply wrong, and we cannot allow it to spread to the new up and coming lab-created, synthetic foods.

To better understand FDA’s haphazard approach to standards when applied to dairy, NMPF has sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all information related to plant-based labeling, the use of the term animal-free, the negative human health consequences due to mislabeling of plant-based products and much more. It’s critical that we do this, as with a new generation of imitators on the horizon, we need to stand up for dairy now before consumer confusion proliferates further.

This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on Feb. 6, 2023.

Dairy Wins on Facts in Looming ‘Lab-Based’ Labeling Battle

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The marketers are at it again, breathlessly promoting “innovation” as a storm of startups gather, each hoping to cash out their venture capital before their business models crash and burn. It’s happened in “meat,” it’s happened among some plant-based food manufacturers, and the consumers are always the ones left holding the bag, with nutritional needs that aren’t met and a Wild West government attitude toward food labels that creates confusion over what a food is and isn’t.

That’s why we’re warily watching the rise of so-called lab-based dairy – the dressing up of pre-existing fermentation technology as innovation, all the better to bilk customers with inferior, overpriced goods. To avoid the frustration of the past four decades, in which plant-based imposters have proliferated as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration turns a blind eye to its own rules on dairy terms, it’s ever more important for the agency now to create clear labeling guidelines for such products, making clear distinctions to protect consumer health and safety, and avoid past mistakes.

First, a primer on what companies such as Perfect Day, which advertises itself as providing “Sustainable Animal-Free Dairy and Protein,” provide. Using “precision fermentation” technology, an imitator can duplicate an individual dairy protein – for example, a single whey protein among numerous proteins found in natural whey – and reproduce it at a commercial scale without using its natural source of creation, an animal.

The technology isn’t new: In fact, the dairy industry pioneered it, using fermentation to produce calf rennet for cheesemaking. But through the wonders of marketing and a loose definition of what “dairy” is, startups are creating the impression that they’re using cutting-edge technology to develop a true dairy product. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Here’s why. In food science, an important principle is this: We don’t know what we don’t know. Appreciation for food’s complexity – how nutrients interact, how much the food-creation process matters – has advanced from the 20th century, when cereal marketers could slap “Fortified With 8 Vitamins and Minerals” and deem sugary breakfast products a healthy food.

Milk isn’t just a single synthesized protein or a simple collection of nutrients. It’s a complex biologic product evolved over millennia, with nutritional and health benefits created via innumerable interactions within an animal that only the arrogant and foolish would claim it can perfectly reproduce. While in a sense, these lab-synthesized products come closer to the mark than plant-based fakes – at least they have overlapping strands of some matching DNA – a single dairy protein is no more “milk” than a steering wheel is a car. These products do not come anywhere near replicating natural dairy.

And, given the necessity of the animal to the process, they never will. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s stated standard of identity for milk as “the lacteal secretion … obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows” isn’t the result of industry lobbying or an outdated conception of dairy. It reflects a solid grounding in scientific reality, one that isn’t changed by a fermentation vat and a misleading marketing pitch.

About those vats. Beyond the simple scientific refutation of synthesized, lab-based products as dairy, it’s important to note that the purported advantages of these products, specifically regarding their sustainability, can be wildly overstated.

It’s true that dairy cows contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, for the same reasons you do — they eat, drink, and use land. But a well-managed, 21st century dairy also fits well into an environmental lifecycle that includes using a cow’s four-chambered stomach to convert plants that are inedible for humans into milk and dairy products we can consume and enjoy, as well as creating byproducts that can displace fossil fuels. That’s why we’re so excited about and confident in our sector’s highly achievable Net Zero Initiative.

Lab-based dairy sustainability is less certain. What’s the electric bill for the industrial bioreactor used to make small product batches of casein into larger ones? What’s the carbon footprint needed for the large-scale reproduction of a single protein, versus the effort used by an animal that can perfectly create every single necessary substance on its own? And what are the prospects of producing at competitive cost and scale in a factory what cows produce naturally and is sold relatively inexpensively? If the benefit exists, where are the studies that verify it? And who funded them?

All of this, and more, argues for extremely clear labeling of technologically primitive dairy-protein replicants sold in the marketplace that, without regulatory intervention, are guaranteed to mislead and confuse consumers more than they benefit them. We’ve seen that in the proliferation of mislabeled plant-based products. A factory-synthesized dairy protein, for example, can still trigger milk allergies. But what choice might a consumer with such allergies, upon seeing an “Animal Free” marketing claim, make? And in the real world – the one where consumers eat food, not DNA sequences – what’s the safest, most honest way to inform them that what they consume is nutritionally doing what dairy naturally does, even when we ourselves don’t necessarily know exactly what’s creating that experience?

Here’s how: By relying on clear labeling guidelines that have existed for decades and are grounded in well-established science and consumer understanding.

In some ways, the looming labeling battle over industrially duplicated “dairy” may seem more difficult than the plant-based challenge. But from another angle, the need for labeling integrity is obvious and the arguments clear. Dairy has been, is today, and always will be, the product of an animal-based production system. It’s what makes it what it is. Despite the attempts to blur these crucial distinctions that are already under way and promise to proliferate, that must always be kept top-of-mind. We certainly will. And we’ll do everything we can to make sure that FDA, members of Congress and consumers do too.

Jim Mulhern

President and CEO, National Milk Producers Federation

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 Thanks Sen. Baldwin for Prodding FDA Nominee Califf on Dairy Labeling

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) thanked Senator Tammy Baldwin for her continued advocacy for accurate labeling and public health in her questions for Dr. Robert Califf during today’s hearing on his nomination to be commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Labeling integrity needs to be a top-of-mind issue for Dr. Califf as he moves toward his second stint as FDA commissioner. The ground has shifted since his previous tenure in the Obama administration, both as dairy imitators proliferate and the abuse of lax labeling enforcement creates nutritional confusion for consumers,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of NMPF. “FDA has pledged to offer guidance on this issue within months. Given this, we thank Senator Baldwin for pressing for urgent action today in her questioning.”

In response to a question from Sen. Baldwin, D-WI, asking him whether and when the FDA will begin enforcing its own labeling standards, Dr. Califf said he would make the issue a priority should he be confirmed as FDA commissioner.

There is “almost nothing more fundamental about safety than people understanding exactly what they’re ingesting, so I am committed to making this a priority if I am confirmed,” Dr. Califf said. Video of the exchange with Sen. Baldwin is here.

The National Milk Producers Federation has been speaking out on FDA’s lack of enforcing its own rules against mislabeled plant-based imitators for four decades and is encouraged by recent, long overdue FDA attention to the issue. For more background on NMPF’s position and statements of support from public-health organizations, click here. An NMPF “road map” outlines how the agency can adapt existing standards to reflect the current marketplace and protect labeling integrity. The organization has also repeatedly called on the FDA’s ombudsman to look into the agency’s lack of enforcement of current rules on product labeling for dairy labels and alternatives.

 

NMPF Files Comments to Cell-Based Meat Docket

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

NMPF filed comments to USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking entitled “Labeling of Meat or Poultry Comprised of or Containing Cultured Animal Cells,” emphasizing consumers right to know that they are consuming cell-based/lab-grown products through the label on the product. The comments, filed Nov. 9, highlighted:

  • The need to enforce already existing standards;
  • That the word “cultured” should not be used to describe these products, as the term is associated with cultured dairy products including yogurt, and kefir among others;
  • Products containing lab-grown animal cells should clearly state that;
  • USDA should coordinate policies with FDA while developing these standards; and
  • “Cell-based,” “lab-grown,” or “synthetic” would all be appropriate labels for these products.

FSIS should move expeditiously through the normal rulemaking process and not waste years developing rules while not making the same blunders that FDA has. The full comments can be found here.

The World Unites Against “Plant Butter.” Will We?

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Strange bedfellows, indeed. But also a reason for hope.

In Case You Missed It, the Codex Committee on Fats and Oils of the Codex Alimentarius, which, among other things, sets international food standards, in October decided not to take up a proposal by IMACE, the European Margarine Association, to allow its members to call their members’ products “plant butter” under the international standard for fat spreads and blended spreads.

U.S. dairy farmers hold no natural gripe against the European Margarine Association – in fact, we had never even heard of them until last month. Europeans, like consumers worldwide, have every right to purchase inferior products in fair and open market competition. However, touting “plant butter” as a legitimate name is a rude introduction to our continental purveyors of congealed vegetable oil, to say the least. It smacks of the shenanigans of Country Crock on this side of the Atlantic. And it speaks volumes about the increasing brazenness of plant-based imposters that they would even bring forth this request, which is so obviously driven by marketing concerns over the public good.

As due process dictates, the European Margarine Association got its hearing. And fortunately, most of the world is much more honest and consistent in labeling than what’s currently practiced in the United States. A wide-ranging coalition of nations spoke against it before CODEX, including the EU itself, France, Norway, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, India, Iran, Argentina, Colombia, Uganda, Malaysia, and the United States. For a brief moment, longtime friends, and even longtime adversaries, fought the fakes. The world came together to defend dairy terms, gain showing the power that global dairy has to nourish and promote health – in this case, the health of international relations.

And so, “plant butter” as a global standard has been resoundingly defeated – for now. But it still leaves some unanswered questions. Why now, European Margarine Association? Why did the idea even come up? Perhaps even more interesting is how the global consensus reflects on current U.S. practice. The argument used by many nations to deny the request was that it would contravene the Codex General Standard for Use of Dairy Terms (GSUDT) (CXS 206-1999) as well as mislead the consumer.

But if that argument is understood and accepted around the world, why has it been so hard to get across here in the U.S.? With the FDA next year promising guidance on dairy labeling, and with an NMPF request to the FDA ombudsman for the agency to enforce its own rules still pending review, will the U.S. be willing to stake out the same pro-consumer position right here at home that it (rightfully) takes abroad?

We shall see. But we never fail to hope that the U.S. will eventually stand behind its own dairy standards of identity. Global support for the proper use of dairy terms remains strong, and that strength only raises our hope that worldwide consistency can soon be achieved. And heck, if the United States can agree with Iran on something … maybe this truly is the first step toward a better tomorrow.

So thank you for clarifying where the world stands, European Margarine Association. May this request never be made again – and may its rejection be an example our own government will follow.

Bipartisan DAIRY PRIDE Act May Further FDA Enforcement Progress

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Representatives Peter Welch (D-VT) and Mike Simpson (R-ID) and Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and James Risch (R-ID) on April 22 reintroduced the bipartisan DAIRY PRIDE Act. The bill would bring clear, accurate labeling information for consumers and end harmful mislabeling of dairy foods by peddlers of plant-based products by requiring the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enforce its own existing standards of identity on imitation dairy products after decades of inaction.

NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern thanked Welch and Simpson and Baldwin and Risch for reintroducing the measure and their ongoing leadership working to ensure FDA does its job. NMPF has been working for decades for FDA to enforce dairy standards of identity, as plant-based imitators have a long history of flouting these labeling laws to piggyback on dairy’s good name and reputation and benefiting from the “halo of health” associated with nutritious, healthy dairy products.

“FDA is responsible for the integrity and safety of our nation’s food, medicine, and medical devices, and it’s crucial that it enforce its own standards and requirements,” Mulhern said. “Without enforcement, we are left open to the potential for questionable products, deceptive practices, and, in cases such as mislabeled plant-based products that masquerade as having nutritional benefits similar to dairy’s, negative effects to our health.”

Medical groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics are voicing concerns over the harm lack of enforcement is having on public health as misinformed consumers unintentionally choose less nutritious products for themselves and their families.

Congress has also shown a growing concern for FDA’s failure to enforce. The House held a hearing in January 2020 on the agency’s lack of enforcement, during which NMPF Executive Vice President Tom Balmer testified on the need to enforce dairy standards of identity. In December 2020 Congress included in the report accompanying the FDA funding bill for FY 2021 a statement of concern and directive to FDA regarding enforcing standards of identity for dairy products.

NMPF will continue working on FDA enforcement, building on this progress made in 2020, with Mulhern seeing the reintroduction of the DAIRY PRIDE Act as “helping NMPF and consumers continue to move forward toward solving this critical public health and fairness issue.”

FDA Must Enforce Fake-Dairy Rules, NMPF Tells Agency Ombudsman in New Advocacy Phase

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

With FDA giving little indication of promised action on proper labeling of imitation dairy products, the National Milk Producers Federation today asked the agency’s ombudsman to ensure that rules are properly enforced.

“Allowing unlawfully labeled ‘plant-based’ imitation dairy foods to proliferate poses an immediate and growing risk to public health; it is a clear dereliction of the FDA’s duty to enforce federal law and agency regulations,” wrote NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern in the letter, sent to Dr. Laurie Lenkel, ombudsman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “The FDA’s Office of the Ombudsman must intervene to break the bureaucratic logjam that is adversely affecting consumers. Doing so would fit squarely within the Office’s own mission to ensure even-handed application of FDA policy and procedures.”

The FDA ombudsman, based in the agency commissioner’s office, “serves as a neutral and independent resource for members of FDA-regulated industries when they experience problems with the regulatory process,” according to the agency. NMPF is urging the ombudsman’s office to take appropriate action to remedy the FDA’s lax approach to enforcing its own rules on the use of dairy terms on products containing no dairy ingredients, which have proven impacts on public health – a new phase of advocacy brought about by the agency’s regrettable inaction. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations have offered evidence of nutritional deficiencies caused by confusion over the contents of plant-based versus dairy beverages.

NMPF last year released its own road map offering solutions to how public health, product integrity and free speech could be protected through updated regulations. NMPF also supports the DAIRY PRIDE Act, a potential legislative prod for FDA action, and has asked FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn to follow up on the pledge he made nearly one year ago to make fake-dairy labeling a high-priority issue at FDA.