NMPF Executive Vice President for Communications & Industry Relations Alan Bjerga discusses the decline of plant-based beverage consumption in 2023 in an interview with RFD-TV. Fluid milk seized back market share last year as plant-based beverage volume sales fell to their lowest since 2019, led by a 10 percent drop in almond drinks.
Tag: fake milk
Overcoming challenges is what we do
By Randy Mooney, Chairman, NMPF Board of Directors
We’ve had a lot of achievements this year, but it’s also been a challenging time.
A year ago, costs on the farm were extremely high, but we had prices that would cover that. This year, costs are still high, but prices are down. That’s a lot of stress on the farm. And we’re also dealing with problems that we’ve dealt with for years.
There are labor problems; you just can’t find anybody to work. Supply chain disruptions are closer to the farm this year. It’s milk trucks getting milk off the farm; it’s feed trucks bringing feed into the farm. It’s getting simple parts that we took for granted we could get anytime we wanted to. There are geopolitical issues and extreme weather events.
We have challenges all the time, but it just seems like we continue to have more. It seems like we’re in the eye of a storm. But as farmers, we always anticipate a moment before the dawn, before things turn, before things get good again.
One of the things I’ve learned is that a lot of the world is envious of what we have.
They’re envious because we have the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Program, a self-governing program. We have a government that recognizes what we’re doing with sustainability — it’s not being mandated down from the top.
We’re taking care of our own. Today, we produce more milk using fewer and fewer natural resources. We’re revitalizing rural communities. For every dollar generated in dairy farming, it turns over three to seven times in local communities, generating $750 billion in the United States. That‘s pretty impressive.
We’re nourishing families around the world through milk’s unbeatable nutritional value. I’ve dairy farmed for a long time, through good times and bad times, but there’s never been a time that I haven’t laid my head down on my pillow at night and been proud of what I accomplished on my farm. We’re putting the most nourishing, most nutritious product known to man in that milk tank. And when that truck leaves, I know I’ve done something good.
Our ability to evolve how we work and adapt our resiliency is becoming more and more important. This year, we came together as an industry to unite around issues that helped build that resiliency. NMPF worked with member co-ops, farm bureaus, and state dairy organizations to come to consensus on the most substantial issues. Even going back to 2021, when you talk about Federal Milk Marketing Order modernization, we’ve worked hard to get these things done. Nobody knows what the outcome’s going to be, but you telling your story has made a difference.
Beyond that, we’re going to get a farm bill passed — we’re going have an extension. We’ve been working to implement the next version of FARM, FARM 5.0, that goes into effect in July. We also will work on promoting dairy’s sustainable nutrition. Dairy offers the most complete nutritional package available, and what’s amazing is that as we produce more milk, we’ll continue to use fewer natural resources. That’s the definition of sustainable nutrition.
For years, we’ve talked about sustainability in terms of environmental stewardship and how that translates into financial value for farms. Now, the financial values are there. You take solar panels, wind, methane digesters, and a lot of things happen on a farm that’s generating electricity to run your farms and to run your neighbor’s households. We’re there now. What we need is conservation funding in the farm bill through USDA grants through state and federal programs. There’s real money available to help us continue to do that, and we will.
No imitation food from a nut, a bean, or grain can hold a candle to dairy’s nutritional package. We all know that. That’s why it’s important to keep fighting the fight on plant-based alternative labeling. In the guidance that was issued earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognized and admitted that plant-based alternatives are nutritionally inferior to real dairy.
Dairy protein plays a critical role in feeding people around the world, and it can’t be replaced by alternatives, including plant-based. Consumers have the right to understand how they’re nourishing their families, and we’re going to continue to advocate for the Dairy PRIDE Act to try to get that passed in Congress.
We’re going to continue to fight for more flavored milk in schools and higher fat levels, especially for those children whose main source of nutrition is through the school milk program. Milk is essential to their diets, and we’re not going to give up that fight. We’re all part of an industry that’s doing remarkable things. We are winning.
This has been adapted from Chairman of the NMPF Board of Directors Randy Mooney’s speech at the National Milk Producers Federation annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 14, 2023. This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on Nov. 22, 2023.
NMPF’s Bjerga on Why Milk’s Widening Its Lead Over Plant-Based Beverages
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications discusses the shifting consumer preference toward milk over plant-based beverages, plus NMPF’s latest efforts toward labeling integrity, on RFD-TV. Consumer data shows consumption of plant-based drinks falling this year, while milk sales are remaining more stable. Meanwhile, NMPF has submitted comments to FDA urging it to enforce its Standard of Identity that clearly state that milk is an animal product.
Lab-based ‘milk’ Labeling Fight Is Here
By Clay Detlefsen, Chief Counsel, NMPF
One would think that four decades’ worth of lessons would lead to some truths being learned. But as laboratory-based dairy imitators enter the marketplace, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seems poised to repeat the same mistakes it has made with plant-based beverages, in which their labels mislead consumers into confusing one thing with something very different.
At issue is a product called “Bored Cow,” which markets itself as “milk.” While the product does include a whey protein that’s the product of fermentation in a laboratory setting, other elements on its long list of exotic ingredients show what should be obvious to every consumer: This isn’t milk as nature has ever known it.
NMPF has been fighting with FDA over its lack of enforcement of dairy standards of identity for decades. What Bored Cow is doing is taking one whey protein that’s synthetically made by precision fermentation, blending that with a myriad of other food ingredients that are quite disgusting-sounding in many cases, and calling the product “dairy milk.”
That’s the wrong description for what they’re selling.
Milk has 13 essential nutrients. It contains 400 different fatty acids. It has got two categories of proteins, casein and whey, numerous micronutrients, and it’s an incredibly complex matrix that delivers an enormous nutritional package for consumers. You cannot replicate that in a laboratory. Milk is natural and it’s good for you. And you can’t duplicate what comes from a cow in a stainless steel vat.
But so far, FDA is allowing this violation of its standards of identity to persist, though finally after decades of inaction, FDA has gotten the message that consumers are confused and misled about the nutritional inferiority of most if not all plant-based milk alternatives. We are still hopeful FDA will step up and enforce its rules. Earlier this year, FDA proposed a voluntary labeling guidance in which they ask marketers of plant-based milk alternatives to voluntarily disclose their products’ nutritional offerings and, in most cases, those products’ nutritional inferiorities.
While NMPF appreciates the more explicit side-by-side comparison, the overall FDA guidance is flawed and we want it withdrawn. When it comes to Bored Cow and its one synthesized dairy protein, we are concerned that this, too, is a nutritionally inferior imitator that will mislead consumers and deliver a mediocre product that could harm human health.
One caveat that lab-based companies are using to distinguish themselves from plant-based imitators is that their products include one component of dairy milk. While that’s the case, it doesn’t change how very different in overall composition these products actually are — the same fundamental challenge that is also at the root of concerns over plant-based labeling. In both cases, processors are largely ignoring existing rules and regulations and doing whatever they want — not in the consumer’s interest but in their own. It’s sloppy, lazy marketing and it needs to stop.
As with plant-based foods, FDA needs to enforce its rules and regulations and send a clear message to the plant-based folks, and now the synthetic “milk” processors, that the dairy rules are on the books, and they, like everyone else, have to follow them. Otherwise, the integrity of the marketplace — and the FDA’s role as the protector of consumer interests — will continue to erode. That’s not what consumers deserve. And it’s completely preventable — if only, after four decades, FDA finally learns.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on July 31, 2023.
NMPF’s Detlefsen on the Scourge of Lab-Based Milk Imposters
NMPF Chief Counsel Clay Detlefsen discusses the even more urgent need for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to enforce beverage standards of identity as lab-based milk imposters try to use dairy terms in the marketplace. “Milk has got 13 essential nutrients. It’s got 400 different fatty acids. It’s got two categories of proteins, casein and whey, numerous micronutrients,” he said. “You cannot replicate that in a laboratory or elsewhere. I mean milk is milk. It’s natural, and it’s good for you. And you can’t duplicate that in the lab.” Detlefsen spoke in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters.
NMPF’s Bjerga on Fair Nutrition Access in Federal Programs
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga talks about the importance of equal nutrition for all — and how milk in both regular and lactose-free options can assist in that goal — is a bedrock principle in federal nutrition programs. Bjerga also updates on the latest in NMPF’s comment campaign regarding the FDA’s draft guidance for proper terminology in plant-based beverages, discussing the topics in an interview with RFD-TV.
FDA Guidance an Incomplete Win for Dairy
By Alan Bjerga, Senior Vice President, Communications, National Milk Producers Federation FDA’s split-decision draft guidance on plant-based beverage labeling offered last month gave everyone something to be mad about. For dairy producers and consumers, the fact the agency would allow plant-based beverages to call themselves “milk” is unacceptable. For plant-based beverage manufacturers, guidance that they should disclose their nutritional inferiorities prominently on the packaging makes using a dairy term much less attractive. And even though the guidance is voluntary — and thus in theory could be ignored — companies that want to stay on FDA’s good side and avoid being called out on their noncompliance by dairy’s defenders have the incentive to either follow the guidance or sidestep the issue completely by avoiding dairy terms altogether. Either way, consumers win.That makes dairy the net winner in the decision, however incomplete it may be. Crucially, FDA is accepting the National Milk Producers Federation’s core argument — that ample consumer research shows that consumers are confused over the nutritional content of plant-based beverages and the need for labeling. And that provides a great opportunity for dairy and consumers to make progress in achieving the logical outcome of that acceptance — ending altogether the mislabeling of plant-based beverages that’s plagued the U.S. market for more than four decades.
It’s much easier to win a debate when the premise of the debate is set on your own terms. Decades of calling on the FDA to enforce its own standard of identity for milk mostly fell on deaf ears. Even if dairy’s argument was clearly correct, FDA could choose to do nothing about it, and doing nothing was a task in which FDA excelled.
As plant-based beverages proliferated and it became clear that stolen dairy terms encouraged consumers to assume an incorrect nutritional profile for these products, nutritional confusion among consumers has become a public health issue the agency simply can’t ignore. And to its credit, FDA’s guidance, for all its flaws, is an attempt to seriously address a problem it began to acknowledge only in the past half-decade.
But now that the agency has acknowledged the problems and offered guidance, it will be critical to keep up the pressure to follow this progress to a successful conclusion. Consumers, dairy producers, and their allies need to make sure FDA’s approach isn’t weakened, and then to make sure that now that our analysis of the problem has been accepted, the logical solution of that analysis – limiting dairy terms only to dairy products – is the eventual outcome.
On the first point, FDA has opened its guidance up for public comment. NMPF has set up its own simple guide on how to submit a comment. Through this form, members of the public can either personalize their own message to FDA or have access to resources that will help them write their own comments from scratch.
On the second point, we are advocating for congressional passage of the DAIRY PRIDE Act, which has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The legislation would require FDA to enforce its standard of identity for milk, solving the problem at its root.
The fight for labeling integrity has taken patience and persistence. But progress is real, and with momentum on our side, we can make a real difference in the marketplace for public health. Please consider joining us in this effort.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on March 20, 2023.
NMPF’s Bjerga on Plant-Based vs. Lab-Based Labeling Concerns
NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga discusses the differing challenges of plant-based beverages that use dairy terms vs. lab-created dairy alternatives using a replicated dairy protein, in an interview with WEKZ radio in Janesville, WI. While plant-based beverages have widely divergent nutritional profiles, lab-based dairy does incorporate actual dairy — but doesn’t duplicate the complex interactions and processes that create a true dairy product.
NMPF’s Bjerga on Next Steps on Plant-Based Labeling
NMPF Senior Vice President for Communications Alan Bjerga discusses next steps in the effort to bring transparency to plant-based beverage labeling in an interview with the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. While the FDA’s proposed guidance accepts dairy’s core argument — that beverages that falsely call themselves “milk” falsely imply a similar nutritional profile — the acceptance of such terms, even with disclaimers, still falls short of recognizing FDA’s own standards of identity and ending the confusion once and for all. That makes efforts such as congressional passage of the DAIRY PRIDE Act all the more essential, he said.
FDA Guidance On Plant-Based Beverages’ Use of Dairy Terms is a First Step, NMPF Says While Calling for Complete Transparency in Labeling
In response to today’s FDA guidance on plant-based beverages, which guides manufacturers of plant-based beverages to disclose their nutrient inferiority and acknowledges the public health concern of nutritional confusion over such beverages, the National Milk Producers Federation, which has led the fight for labeling transparency, released the following statement:
From Jim Mulhern, President and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation:
“Today’s FDA announcement is a step toward labeling integrity for consumers of dairy products, even as it falls short of ending the decades-old problem of misleading plant-based labeling using dairy terminology. By acknowledging both the utter lack of nutritional standards prevalent in plant-based beverages and the confusion over nutritional value that’s prevailed in the marketplace because of the unlawful use of dairy terms, FDA’s proposed guidance today will provide greater transparency that’s sorely needed for consumers to make informed choices.
“Still, the decision to permit such beverages to continue inappropriately using dairy terminology violates FDA’s own standards of identity, which clearly define dairy terms as animal-based products. We reject the agency’s circular logic that FDA’s past labeling enforcement inaction now justifies labeling such beverages “milk” by designating a common and usual name. Past inaction is poor precedent to justify present and future inaction.
“Because FDA’s proposed guidance is meaningless without action, enforcement will be necessary to ensure that this limited progress is reflected on grocery shelves. For these reasons, we will continue our work in Congress to pass the DAIRY PRIDE Act, which would direct FDA to enforce its own rules and clarify that dairy terms are for true dairy products, not plant-based imposters.
“FDA’s last three Senate-confirmed commissioners — from both parties — have each acknowledged the problem of consumer confusion over nutritional content created by beverage labels that use dairy terms to imply qualities they simply don’t have. Medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, concur with this concern. Today’s proposed guidance at least recognizes this reality: That nutritionally inconsistent concoctions of water, factory-processed powders and other additives simply don’t contain the same nutrition that milk provides.
“As the agency entrusted with protecting consumers from mislabeled products, FDA’s action here takes a step in that direction. And after more than four decades of efforts that have often fallen on deaf ears, we appreciate that today’s agency leadership is beginning to treat plant-based beverage labeling more like the critical issue of nutrition and agency integrity that it is.
“We also would like to thank consumers, who sales data show drank fewer fake dairy beverages in 2022 than in 2021, part of a broader awakening to the bogus marketing of fake milk manufacturers that have been accepted uncritically for far too long. Despite the misinformation spun in advertisements and media, consumers are seeing through the marketing and recognizing these beverages for the fakes that they are. But consumers shouldn’t have to make choices in a marketplace that’s less than fully transparent, and until the federal government fully lives up to its mission, NMPF will continue to lead the battle for labeling transparency.”
For more NMPF discussion of the misleading use of dairy terms on plant-based beverages, see:
https://www.nmpf.org/the-plant-based-lie-that-needs-to-die/
https://www.nmpf.org/say-it-loud-say-it-clear-the-plant-based-beverage-bust-is-here/
https://www.nmpf.org/dairy-wins-on-facts-in-looming-lab-based-labeling-battle/
https://www.nmpf.org/plant-based-higher-cost-lower-quality-be-sure-to-tell-your-barista/
https://www.nmpf.org/fdas-proven-it-can-do-its-job-on-fake-milk-it-can-do-it-again/
https://www.nmpf.org/dairy-defined-the-over-hyped-shift-to-plant-based-beverages/
Taking a stand for true dairy products
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.
NMPF’s Bjerga on the Myths of Plant-Based Beverages (Parts 1 & 2)
In a two-part interview with Ag Information of the West, NMPF Senior Vice President of Communications Alan Bjerga takes on the myths perpetuated by plant-based beverage marketers in the context of such beverages’ declining sales. “If you read some of this media coverage in the last few years, you would have thought that cows were on their way to going extinct,” Bjerga said. “I think the cows are alive and well.” Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.
