War of Words for Dairy Industry

Taylor Hillman Cattle, Dairy & Livestock, General

Dairy ProuctsThe dairy industry has a few words for the FDA, when it comes to labeling regulations. Sabrina Hill explains.

Dairy industry on labeling

It’s a war of words for the National Milk Producers Federation.
The federation wants to know why the FDA is focusing on clarifying the use of terms like “dried cane syrup” or “evaporated cane juice” rather than enforcing currently-standing regulations.

The federation’s issue is with the use of the dairy terms for non-dairy items. For example: soy milk or dairy-free yogurt.

The FDA is working on different wording for “evaporated cane juice” because, the FDA says, that name falsely implies the sweeteners are juice, despite not meeting the definition of juice.

To put it differently, when you think of juice, you think of fruit juice, not sweetening syrup. The point of the milk producers federation: when you think of milk, you think cows, not soybeans.

The FDA has already agreed on this point, and has regulations in place for those products. However, the milk producers federation says the FDA should be enforcing those regulations before working on setting new ones for other industries.