It was announced this week that the US-based Institute for Justice (IJ) – a non-profit, public-interest law firm – has partnered with cell-based meat business Upside Foods to file a lawsuit to challenge Florida’s ban on cultivated meat.
They claim the ban, announced by Florida governor Ron DeSantis in May, is “economic protectionism” with lead lawyer Paul Sherman suggesting it undermines the principles of a “national common market”.
Whether he is right or wrong is up for a judge to decide, of course, and Florida’s administration will be given a chance to defend and justify its actions.
But there is a wider point here worth exploring on the use of bans to exclude or restrict certain types of foodstuffs from the market.
Florida isn’t the only US state to use this tactic. In January, Alabama state senators introduced a similar bill while in Europe Italy's government backed a bill that would ban laboratory-produced meat and other synthetic foods, highlighting Italian food heritage and health protection.
Florida also talked about protection in taking the action it did. DeSantis said his administration would continue supporting its “local farmers and ranchers” in a bid to “save our beef.”
Another way territories have attempted to protect their existing produce is through labelling regulations.
Last year, Texas passed a law that would require cultivated-meat products to include front-of-pack messaging that indicates they are “cell-cultured” or “lab-grown”.
This echoes what has happened with plant-based dairy-alternatives in Europe.
The EU has for a number of years banned plant-based products from being marketed with designations such as ‘milk’, ‘cream’, ‘butter’, ‘cheese’ or ‘yogurt’, which are reserved by EU law for animal products. France, unilaterally, has done the same for plant-based products using ‘meaty’ names, while South Africa made a similar move but it was ultimately overturned by a judge.
The UK, no longer an EU member, was earlier this year considering even tighter regulations on branding and labelling on plant-based dairy alternatives that could outlaw terms such as ‘mylk’, ‘yogs’ and ‘sheeze’.
Whether this approach will be maintained by the newly-elected Labour government remains to be seen. It will hardly be the top item in its in-tray.
Interpreting what is going on here probably depends on your outlook. Protecting consumers from false claims and ensuring they are fully informed about what they are eating and drinking would be one view.
Protecting the interests of powerful dairy and meat lobbies would be another.
I can see merits in both points of view, although I think suggesting something labelled oatmilk might be mistaken for a product that has originated in a cow is somewhat insulting to consumers’ intelligence.
Two questions remain. Firstly, in relation to cell-based meat, are bans of the type we have seen in certain US states and European countries likely to multiply in number, especially as we approach the day – far off as that may seem – when meat created in a lab is produced in large enough amounts to enter the retail and foodservice channels in a meaningful way and provide real competition for traditional meatpackers?
And, secondly, will branding restrictions and product labelling rules increasingly be used to control how products can be described, especially in the alt-protein field, even though most supermarkets now have dedicated and clearly marked plant-based sections?
If the answer to both of these is yes then the lawmakers and regulators concerned are either consumer champions or being overly protective of well-established and lucrative industries keen to maintain their market share.
You decide which.
