A campaign has been launched to stop Trading Standards from issuing guidelines preventing plant-based brands from using dairy-related terms such as ‘mylk’, ‘sheese’ and ‘b+tter’.
Food & Drink Public Relations agency Palm PR have initiated the campaign and started a petition in an effort to stop Trading Standards from upending the way vegan brands have marketed themselves for years.
The campaign has launched with a petition on change.org and is already supported by The Vegan Society and vegan charity Viva!, along with multiple businesses and key opinion leaders in the category. Plant-based dairy companies Cocos Organic and Nush Foods are publicly supporting the petition alongside brands from the wider plant-based category, including British plant-based meat company Moving Mountains, and plant-based pizza company One Planet Pizza. The agency is arguing for equality for the UK’s plant-based economy.
Investigative reporting from The Times has shown that Trading Standards is soon to issue guidelines that would prevent brands from using “misspelling[s], homophonic words or non-alphabet symbols” to refer to dairy terms.
The campaign believes that these changes would prevent a level playing field between categories, instead dampening innovation and adding costs to businesses already battling rising prices.
Palm PR’s immediate aim is for the petition to stop Trading Standards from issuing guidelines preventing plant-based brands from using dairy-related terms. Long term, it hopes that the campaign will encourage Trading Standards to evolve its overall guidelines to better fit a modern and dynamic food and drink industry.
Palm Founders Emily and Liam Keogh said: “We believe that the vegan sector can live in harmony alongside the rest of the food and drink industry, that it’s possible to support both the plant-based and non-vegan parts of the market and that the plant-based industry’s success reinforces the success of all of the UK’s food and drink economy. That’s why we are petitioning Trading Standards to allow plant-based brands to continue to use dairy-related terms.
“We are passionate about promoting as much choice as possible in the food and drink industry and that there should be a level playing field between categories. We also believe that the UK’s vegan food industry is an incredible part of the economy and should be celebrated – it’s a world-leader, generates millions of pounds of revenue a year and promotes more choice for consumers.
“We ask that the wider industry supports the plant-based sector by signing the petition and by asking Trading Standards to keep the status quo and not undermine an exciting engine of growth, dynamism and innovation in the food and drink industry.”
Steve Hamon, CEO of The Vegan Society, added: “There is no evidence that consumers are confused when buying plant-based dairy alternatives, and to argue that terms such as ‘not milk’ and ‘sheese’ are confusing and should be banned is ridiculous. This proposed measure is based on outdated regulations and appears to be driven solely by commercial interests rather than consumer interests.
“Instead, it would actually limit consumer choice and work to suppress innovation in the green plant-based industry, where the UK should be a world leader. Plant-based foods emit half the amount of greenhouse gases as animal-based foods and we urgently need to shift diets to help tackle climate change. Trading Standards should drop this proposal which represents a huge step backwards for the UK.”
