Regulation and Labeling of Plant-Based Beverages and Simulated Meat, Poultry, and Egg Products in Canada and the United States

Abstract

Globally, there is a movement toward plant-based diets. At the root of this movement are many different motivators, including concern for animal welfare, concern for the environment and sustainability, and the perceived healthfulness of plant-based compared with animal-based diets. A dilemma in the introduction of innovative plant-based foods is their naming. The names of many common foods (e.g., milk, yogurt, meat) are defined in food standards, which outline the source and compositional requirements for a food to be labeled with the common name. Food standards are regulations, and regulations are technically legally binding and have the force of law, although, of course, they are subject to interpretation. In the United States, food standards have resulted in tremendous contention, both at the state and federal levels. Equally problematic is the composition of plant-based foods, which is largely unregulated in the United States, resulting in a plethora of plantbased foods that differ from each other and from their animal-based counterparts in their nutritional compositions. In Canada, the situation is quite different. Indeed, most plant-based foods are regulated by standards of identity, which define not only the nutritional compositions of the foods, but also their naming. An understanding of the regulatory environment in each country, globally, is fundamental in the development and successful marketing of plant-based foods. Plant-based diets are diets comprised mainly of foods derived from plants, with little to no foods of animal origin, such as meat, eggs, and dairy products (12,15). In the last few years, the adoption of plant-based diets has gained increasing popularity in Western societies (4,13,14). With increased innovation in plantbased foods, an increasingly perplexing question has been what these foods should be called. Although many consumers do not realize it, there exist standards of identity that prescribe the compositional and nutritional attributes of a food that is marketed under a given and common name. For example, “milk” is associated with a standard of identity, both in the United States (in 21 CFR 133.3(a)) and in Canada (in Section B.08.003 of the Food and Drug Regulations) (6,22). In both countries, milk is defined as the lacteal secretion obtained from the mammary gland of the cow, genus Bos. Foods that do not meet the compositional requirements for milk technically should not be labeled as “milk.” Indeed, in Canada, plant-based dairy substitutes are referred to as “beverages” and not “milks” (8). In the United States, the controversy is very strong, with proponents arguing that the use of the term “milk” in the labeling of plant-based beverages is perfectly acceptable, so long as “milk” is prefaced by the source (e.g., “oat milk”). As innovation in plant-based foods increases in response to consumer demand, controversy with respect to the labeling and naming of these foods is expected to intensify, as many common food names—“yogurt,” “cheese,” “sour cream,” “meat,” “sausage,” “stew,” etc.—are actually defined in regulations and associated with food standards. These, and the names of other standardized foods, have been used in the naming of plantbased alternatives (e.g., plant-based “meat”), but this has been challenged by the meat and dairy industries, which have collectively taken the position that standardized terms should be used only if the food meets the conditions set out in the standard. In the United States, the debate is so intense that, in March 2019, the Dairy Pride Act (20) was reintroduced in Congress in an attempt to stop the use of terms like “milk,” “yogurt,” and “cheese” in the labeling of plant-based products. Likewise, the Real Marketing Edible Artificials Truthfully (MEAT) Act was introduced to the U.S. Senate in December 2019 (21). If passed, it would require all plant-based meat products to have the term “imitation” either immediately before or after the name of the food, as well as a statement that clearly indicates the product is not derived from, or does not contain, meat. At the level of each individual state, there are additional ongoing initiatives to either permit or restrict the use of standardized names in the labeling of plant-based products. In determining what a plant-based food product should be named, consumer understanding of the origin of the food and its nutritional attributes must be taken into account. In a survey of 1,000 American adults, conducted by the International Food Regulation and Labeling of Plant-Based Beverages and Simulated Meat, Poultry, and Egg Products in Canada and the United States Kathy Musa-Veloso1,2 and Justine Juana3 Intertek Health Sciences Inc., Mississauga, ON, Canada 1 Ph.D., Senior Director, Food and Nutrition Health Claims and Clinical Trials Group, Intertek Health Sciences Inc., 2233 Argentia Rd, Ste 201, Mississauga ON, L5N 2X7, Canada. 2 Corresponding author. E-mail: kathy.musa-veloso@intertek.com 3 B.H.Sc., Junior Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Associate, Food and Nutrition Health Claims and Clinical Trials Group, Intertek Health Sciences Inc., 2233 Argentia Rd, Ste 201, Mississauga ON,