The dairy industry takes more of your money by erecting barriers to competition. Got rent-seeking?
As you trundle your shopping cart through your grocer’s refrigerated section, myriad milk options beckon. Milk tapped from ungulates such as cows, goats and sheep coexists on the shelves with other milks squeezed from nuts, grains, seeds and legumes. Oat milk shares space with goat’s milk; pea milk lies down with the cow-born variety; almond milk nestles alongside its rice-derived cousin.
It only appears to be a peaceable consumer kingdom. For more than a century, the dairy industry has been hurling contention at any new food that directly competes with its animal-born products, enlisting government to pass legislation to bury the competition. In the 1890s, the newcomer was margarine, an affordable substitute for higher-priced butter. The dairy states used their government influence to impose taxes and meddlesome regulations on margarine instead of letting consumers make their own choices in a fair competition. Today, Big Dairy is calling a similar play to boost its bottom line: banging for a federal law (H.R. 1462). The measure, which federal legislators from dairy states wholeheartedly endorse, would prevent foods from being labeled “milk,” “yogurt” or “cheese” unless they owe their provenance to lactating farm animals.
It’s a brazen attempt to steal power, status and money from plant-based milk makers and drinkers. The Food and Drug Administration has long allowed plant-based drink makers to apply the m-word to their product as long as they pair it with a qualifier such as “soy” or “almond” to allay consumer confusion. Acting like the feudal lords of the medieval world, the dairy interests seek to carve up resources and markets for their own gain while returning few gains for their subjects. Already the beneficiaries of considerable subsidies and tariffs, the dairy industry wants government to further manipulate markets to their benefit to kill competition, narrow consumer options and hinder innovation. The measure is so pro-dairy that a cow must have written it.
It’s never wise to position yourself between two trade associations when they’re warring for the last word. Interviewing officials from the dairy lobby and the plant-milk trade association back-to-back about the proposed legislation, I found myself buried in nonintersecting grievances. Alan Bjerga of the National Milk Producers Federation noted that the federal government strictly regulates which beverages can call themselves juice, so why not do the same for plant-based drinks “misbranding” themselves as milk?
Marjorie Mulhall of the Plant Based Food Association attacks laws such as H.R. 1462 for attempting to “pick winners and losers in an already uneven market” while stifling product innovation. The dairy folks present survey data showing consumer confusion about the nature of the two competing foods. The alt-milk advocates point to their own data to counter that claim. They maintain that their milk is superior for the lactose intolerant and that plant-based milk production is both more ethical than dairy farming and better for the environment. Many independent scorekeepers call the contest between mammal milk and the plant variety a draw when judged on flavor, nutrition, cost, the environment and animal welfare.
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