Hard cheese for vegans as ‘mylk’ and ‘sheese’ face ban
Makers of dairy alternatives will be banned under new guidance from using words such as “mylk”, “sheese” and “b+tter” in their product names and marketing.
The government told companies this week that it would not stand in the way of trading standards officers publishing restrictions on the marketing of dairy alternatives.
Greenpeace said that the dairy industry had lobbied for years for the rules to be enforced, citing government and dairy sector documents.
Plant-based products now have a 7 per cent share of milk sales, and almost half of consumers drink at least one dairy alternative milk. A host of vegan milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter products use homophones, asterisked characters and other word play in their product names, such as Rebel Kitchen’s oat, coconut and cashew-based “Mylk” and Alpro’s “Not M*lk”.
Under a “draft opinion” produced by a leading group of trading standards officers, however, even these nods to legally-protected dairy terms will be prohibited.
“The group considers that the use of such altered spelling is in fact using the reserved dairy names,” says the document, which is not in the public domain but has been seen by The Times. “The group consider that it is not possible to circumvent the requirements through obvious misspellings, homophonic words or inserting non-alphabet symbols, when it is clear that the reference is to a reserved term.”
The report by the Food Standards and Information Focus Group (FSIFG), a group of trading standards officers who advise the government, says that it “does not seek in any way to restrict innovation and new technologies”. But the experts said their interpretation of the law was that phrases including “vegan cheese”, “plant-based yoghurt” and “cheddar-type” should be banned.
Names such as “mozzarella alternative” would not be allowed, but language on packaging such as “use as an alternative to mozzarella” would be.
Manufacturers of dairy alternatives…
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