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Ocheesee CreameryNatural brush milk in Florida still can't be labeled as "skim milk." At atomic not yet.
You may anamnesis the Ocheesee Creamery case, which I wrote about in April. As I declared in that column, a Florida accompaniment agronomics administration ambassador ordered Ocheesee, a small, all-natural creamery amid forth the state's panhandle, to stop affairs its brush milk in 2012. He claimed Ocheesee's brush milk ran afield of Florida's accepted of character for brush milk, which requires creameries and dairies to add vitamin A to their brush milk.
Ocheesee, which prides itself on its all-natural milk, proposed to characterization its brush milk as "Pasteurized Brush Milk, No Vitamin A Added." The accompaniment countered with "Non-Grade 'A' Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed" and ordered there be no acknowledgment of "skim milk" on the label. The accompaniment after afflicted its tune, arguing instead that Ocheesee could advertise its 100% brush milk alone if it were labeled as "imitation brush milk."
Finding the state's Orwellian proposals to be as bottomless and antic as they sound, Ocheesee—working with the Florida appointment of the Arlington, Virginia-based Institute for Justice—sued to annul Florida's rules on First Amendment grounds.
A federal adjudicator in Florida upheld the state's rules this spring. Ocheesee anon appealed the judge's decision. That address is pending.
Last month, Florida's attorneys argued in a filing in the case that labeling a brush milk as "skim milk," if said brush milk "fails to accommodated the accepted of character for brush milk," is either "inherently" or "potentially" ambiguous accent the accompaniment claims "may be banned."
Nevermind that Ocheesee's brush milk meets what's been the concordance analogue of brush milk for hundreds of years.
The accompaniment went so far as to antagonistic Ocheesee's all-natural brush milk as "an inferior product." Florida's attorneys additionally affirmation that its "unrefuted affirmation shows that consumers apprehend brush milk to accommodated the accepted of identity."
But that affirmation has actually been refuted. I should know. I was retained as an able in the case, and drafted a address anecdotic how Florida's accepted of character for brush milk misleads and fails to serve the interests of consumers. I refuted.
"Reasonable consumers accept not been and would not be not addled by Ocheesee Creamery's use of the appellation 'pasteurized brush milk' to call its pasteurized brush milk," I address in my report.
This accomplished week, a all-around dairy-industry lobbying accumulation added its two cents in the case. The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), a Washington, D.C.-based accumulation that "represents the nation's dairy accomplishment and business industries and their suppliers, with a associates of 550 companies aural a $125-billion a year industry," filed an amicus abrupt in the case.
If you anticipation the IDFA ability accept ridden in on a alabaster horse to stick up for Ocheesee, which at aftermost calculation had three employees, again you're new to how the apple works. The IDFA sided with Florida regulators and adjoin Ocheesee.
I call this case at breadth in my new book, Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System Added Sustainable (which you can pre-order at Amazon or aces up in bookstores on September 15). Not coincidentally, my altercation of the case appears in the additional chapter, the one blue-blooded "'Big Food' Bigger Thanks to 'Big Government.'"
"It is bright that behemothic dairy conglomerates are afraid that they ability lose barter to bounded creameries who accommodate added choices and bigger products," said Justin Pearson, arch of IJ's Florida appointment and advance advocate in the case, in comments to me this week.
"We see this in abounding of our cases. Whenever there is a antic regulation, there was usually a able and politically affiliated accumulation blame for it, at the amount of aggressive small-business owners," says Pearson.
Sure enough.
"Food processors, such as Ocheesee, who accept not to furnish capital nutrients to the connected level, charge characterization those articles as 'imitation,'" reads the IDFA brief, which goes on to altercate that Ocheesee's brush milk is "misbranded" unless it contains the chat "imitation" on its package.
Notably, Florida's long-preferred analogue for Ocheesee's brush milk—"Non-Grade 'A' Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed"—also does not accommodate the chat "imitation," and so would additionally be "misbranded" in the assessment of the IDFA.
But then, the IDFA additionally has what could accurately be termed as a adjustable access back it comes to standards of identity.
In 2009, for example, the IDFA petitioned the FDA to change the federal accepted of character of milk so that sweeteners like NutraSweet or Splenda could be added to milk and the consistent additive-laden artefact could still be labeled artlessly as "milk." Their position seems to be that the added additives you add to milk, the milkier it is.
The IDFA is in the business of affairs milk—literally and figuratively. There's actually annihilation amiss with that. Nothing, that is, until the IDFA works with the government to asphyxiate competition.
