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State dairy regulators call for imitation milk label enforcement

A group of state dairy regulators wants the Food and Drug Administration to address imitation milk labeling issues.  At a meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan Wednesday, the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments voted unanimously to ask the FDA to ensure the proper use of dairy product names on product labels.

Chris Galen with National Milk Producers Federation tells Brownfield it’s important that state regulators have weighed in on the use of “milk” for plant-based imitation products.  “This particular development is the states now saying to the federal FDA, hey, we really need you guys to really help us do more on this dairy imitation issue.”

The NCIMS has representatives from all 50 states and U.S. territories, dairy groups, and the FDA.

Galen says the FDA is getting more pressure to enforce its own dairy identity guidelines which say milk comes from a mammal and not a plant.  “We’ve got this happening with state regulators.  We have the legislation in Congress that Senator (Tammy) Baldwin introduced in the Senate and Congressman (Sean) Duffy and others are supporting that hasn’t passed yet, but that would be a call from Congress for FDA to take action, so they’re hearing it now from a variety of sources.”

 

The House and Senate legislation is called the Dairy PRIDE Act and is being reviewed by committees.