Tag: FDA dairy labeling

Draft Guidance Not Enough to Prevent Misleading Labeling, NMPF Tells FDA

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

While the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) draft guidance on plant-based beverages acknowledges the public health concern regarding nutritional confusion, it falls woefully short of ending the decades-old problem of misleading plant-based labeling using dairy terminology, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) said in comments submitted to the agency this week.

As the leading voice of American dairy producers, NMPF emphasized the importance of transparent product labeling to ensure consumer understanding and informed purchasing decisions, and urged FDA to take prompt enforcement action against misbranded non-dairy beverages that resemble milk.

“For far too long, plant-based beverage manufacturers have blurred well-defined standards of identity to inappropriately and unfairly capitalize on dairy’s nutritional benefits while FDA has ignored its enforcement obligations,” said Jim Mulhern, NMPF president and CEO. “FDA’s draft guidance is an encouraging first step toward promoting labeling transparency in the marketplace, but it’s not enough. Our comments outline a solution to the misleading labeling practices existing in the marketplace today, and provide clear, truthful labeling options for marketers of plant-based beverages.”

In its comments, NMPF commended FDA for its acknowledgement of consumer confusion over the nutritional content of dairy imitators. “For decades, NMPF has been frustrated with FDA’s unwillingness to enforce its own standards of identity for milk and milk products which continues today. We are encouraged by the agency’s acceptance of the reality of consumer confusion regarding nutritional content,” NMPF wrote. Still, NMPF cautioned FDA to adhere to the law by going through the proper legal process, as outlined in NMPF’s Citizen Petition and comments.

Because of the voluntary nature of the proposed guidance and FDA’s undependable labeling enforcement history, NMPF continues its work in Congress to pass the bipartisan, bicameral DAIRY PRIDE Act, which would direct FDA to enforce its own rules and clarify that dairy terms are for true dairy products.

NMPF Letter Warns FDA: Don’t Repeat Plant-Based Mistakes with Lab-Produced Fake ‘Milk’

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must end dairy product mislabeling by manufacturers of synthetic, cell-based “dairy” ingredients that are in violation of federal dairy Standards of Identity to prevent a repeat of the plant-based labeling fiasco that’s created confusion among consumers and regulatory headaches at the agency, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) said in a letter to the agency.

“Bored Cow’s product takes water and adds what we believe to be one unidentified, lab-engineered ‘whey protein’ along with a highly processed concoction of food additives, preservatives, oil, sugar and several added vitamins, and claims to have created ‘animal-free dairy milk.’ It is baseless, preposterous and absurd to call the resulting product ‘milk,’” NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern said in the letter. “In the interest of public health, the misleading labeling charade must end before it gets out of hand. FDA must act, and must do so now.”

NMPF, which has repeatedly called on FDA to enforce its identity standards for milk as plant-based fakes have proliferated, has been warning the agency that lab-based milk imposters would be next on the horizon without agency action. Even as the agency is wrestling with draft guidance that finally acknowledges consumers’ core concern over plant-based beverages – their false positioning as dairy equivalents in the face of glaring nutritional inferiority – lab-based imitators are following the plant-based playbook and plastering “milk” and other standardized dairy terms on products that in composition bear little resemblance to true dairy.

“As we have seen in the decades-long folly of plant-based beverage labeling, an ounce of prevention is worth oceans of cure,” Mulhern wrote. “We ask the agency to exercise its well-established authority to prevent this company and others that seek to follow from leading consumers down what will become a superhighway of misinformation, absent your willingness to enforce the law.”

Consumers concerned with labeling integrity may visit NMPF’s Call to Action on plant-based labeling here. For an in-depth discussion on lab-based “dairy” and its pitfalls, listen to this podcast here. A copy of NMPF’s full letter regarding Bored Cow, a brand offered by New York City-based Tomorrow Farms, is here.

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.

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.