Missouri became the first state to regulate how marketing pros use the word “meat”—and plant-based brands are fighting back.
The “Missouri Cattlemen’s Fake Meat Bill” was signed into law on June 1 and went into effect on Tuesday. It prohibits organizations from calling products “meat” that aren’t derived from animal sources.
Clean meat—also known as lab-grown meat—is made of cultured animal tissue cells, while plant-based meat is generally from ingredients such as soy, tempeh and seitan.The state law forbids "misrepresenting a product as meat that is not derived from harvested production livestock or poultry." Violators may be fined $1,000 and imprisoned for a year.
A similar argument is unfolding on the federal level.
Plant-based organizations and groups are pushing back against the new law.
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Tofurky CEO Jaime Athos filed the suit along with several other disgruntled parties, including the Good Food Institute, American Civil Liberties Union, and Animal Legal Defense Fund. The coalition hopes to overturn the law, which they say threatens the rights of the entire plant-based industry.
The lawsuit alleges that the ban infringes on the First Amendment as well as “denying fair and honest competition in the marketplace.”
In a press release, The Good Foods Institute’s senior media relations specialist Matt Ball wrote:
Like similar moves to censor plant-based milk labels, this law has nothing to do with consumer protection. Indeed, the Missouri consumer protection agency has no evidence that consumers are confused by the labels of plant-based products. No one buys Tofurky “PLANT-BASED” deli slices thinking they were carved from a slaughtered animal any more than people are buying almond milk thinking it was squeezed from a cow’s udder.
Rather, the Missouri law’s explicit aim is to protect current meat producers from competition from plant-based and clean meat companies: “We’re just trying to protect our product.”
… “Missouri is putting its thumb on the scale to unfairly benefit the meat industry and silence alternative producers,” notes Stephen Wells, Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Executive Director. “This law violates various constitutional principles, including free speech – which should be a concern for everyone, regardless of diet.”
Fast Company reported:
The Missouri Cattlemen’s Association, which supported the statute, said it’s not terribly concerned with plant-based companies such as Tofurky. It takes bigger issue with newer science attempting lab-grown meat, which it believes needs to be disclosed to the consumers once available. According to an Israeli startup called Future Meat Technologies, which just got a large investment from meat giant Tyson Food, that reality isn’t too far away; “clean meat” produced from animal cells may be in restaurants by the end of 2018.
That assurance offers little comfort to organizations who could stand to lose large amounts of money changing product packaging and marketing messages, especially if other states follow Missouri’s lead.
“The meat-substitute market is expected to reach $7.5 billion-plus globally by 2025, up from close to $4.2 billion in last year, according to Allied Market Research,” USA Today reported.
The ability to draw parallels between real meat and the plant-based products that emulate animal offerings are how Tofurky and other organizations appeal to consumers searching for options in their diets.
Ernest Baskin, an assistant professor of food marketing at St. Joseph's University, said consumers use the word "meat," when applied to non-animal protein, as shortcut to understand how they eat the food they see on supermarket shelves."There’s a segment of consumers that doesn't have to eat alternative products, but wants to," he said. "In those cases, putting those options together in front of consumers gives them the thought that 'Hey, maybe these two are similar. Maybe I can substitute."
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