Brooks Law Digest: Advertising

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will host a webinar on August 18, 2020 to discuss animal raising claims made on food labels.

Food & Water Watch and worker advocacy group Venceremos, represented by the Richman Law Group, have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that Tyson’s claims that it works with “independent” family farmers and that it provides a “safe work environment” are false and misleading to consumers.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has signed into law a bill that makes it unlawful to label any cultured meat product “as meat or any product from an animal” without distinct identification as “lab-grown,” “lab-created,” or “grown in a lab.” The law also requires similar labeling for plant-based products.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that the company advertises that it uses “happy cows” to make its ice cream despite the fact that most of the milk used in Ben & Jerry’s products is obtained from factory farming dairy operations. The ruling was based on the judge’s finding that the company never claimed it exclusively used milk from the humane program.

The Supreme Court of California has ruled that there is no right to jury trial in cases brought under the state Unfair Competition Law or False Advertising Law seeking injunctive relief or civil penalties.

Texas Senate Bill 2035 proposes to restrict the use of the terms meat, beef, chicken, and pork on advertising and labeling of food products to food products made out of a “formerly live” animal. The bill would also ban advertisements and labeling of “imitation” meat products that include comparisons of the product’s nutritional value to slaughtered animal products.

An article in the journal Appetite explores Australian consumer attitudes and goals regarding meat consumption.

An article published in Trends in Food Science & Technology argues that clarifying the terms used to refer to cultivated meat (including cellular agriculture, cell-based meat, and clean meat) is essential for clarity in policy debates and to establish customer confidence.

Ben & Jerry’s has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit brought against it in November. Ben & Jerry’s claims that the statements made on its packaging that the cows used to produce its ice cream are “happy” are merely opinions and “fluffery,” and therefore not actionable.

Senate Bill 3053, the Food Safety Modernization for Innovative Technologies Act, would set the regulatory pathway—shared between the FDA and USDA—of foods created using cellular cultivation technology. The Act would mandate pre-approval of any food labeling and require that any such food product “that is an imitation of another food” be conspicuously labeled with the word “imitation.” Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, a food is considered to be an “imitation” if it is nutritionally inferior or does not comply with a standard of identity or nutritional quality guideline of that food.