{"id":5121,"date":"2020-03-27T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/?p=5121"},"modified":"2025-05-09T15:34:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:34:20","slug":"marketing-meat-alternatives-does-nomenclature-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/2020\/03\/27\/marketing-meat-alternatives-does-nomenclature-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing Meat Alternatives: Does Nomenclature Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Source<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (\u201cFDA\u201d) approved<\/em><\/a> the Impossible Burger<\/em><\/a>, one of the first plant-based meat alternatives of its kind. The Impossible Burger gained nation wide attention for its eerie resemblance to real meat \u2013 specifically it\u2019s blood-like color and taste. While the Impossible Burger initially faced some backlash<\/em><\/a>, it opened the door for meat alternatives to become a new normal.<\/p>\n

After the Impossible Burger\u2019s sales proved successful, a rival brand, Beyond Meat<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> launched nationwide sales of their plant-based products in June of 2019. Beyond Meat offered plant-based ground beef, burger patties, and sausage. Soon thereafter fast-food chains joined the trend. In August of 2019 Burger King released The Impossible Whopper<\/em><\/a>; in September of 2019 McDonald’s<\/em><\/a> launched their own version of a meatless burger; and in October of 2019 Dunkin Donuts created a Beyond Sausage Sandwich<\/em><\/a>. Within the last year, plant-based meat alternatives have become a mainstream<\/em><\/a>, household product. Sales of these products amounted to $1.5 billion<\/em><\/a> last year, a twenty-two percent increase from the year before.<\/p>\nGrowing concern about the environmental impact of meat production is largely responsible for the growth in popularity<\/em><\/a> of meat alternative products within the last year. Researchers<\/em><\/a> have stressed the importance of reducing meat production and explained that \u201cgetting protein from plant sources instead of animal sources would drastically help in meeting climate targets and reduce the risk of overshooting temperature goals.\u201d Social awareness of these issues has resulted in more Americans willing to try plant-based products. Surveys found that forty-two percent<\/em><\/a> of Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine had opted for a meat alternative at least once within the last year. Fifty-four percent<\/em><\/a> of Americans ages thirty to thirty-nine had done the same as well as thirty-five percent<\/em><\/a> for ages forty to fifty-four.\n\nPart of the success of meat alternative products lies behind their marketing schemes. While the fine print of most of these products includes \u201cplant-based\u201d, many products still use the term \u201cmeat\u201d for description and marketing purposes. Beef and farming industry groups have taken issue with this nomenclature. They argue that it should be illegal<\/em><\/a> for meatless alternatives to market their products with the word \u201cmeat.\u201d The National Cattleman\u2019s Beef Association (\u201cthe Association\u201d) claims that meat alternative brands are engaging in \u201cfalse and deceptive marketing<\/em><\/a>\u201d and \u201cclearly trying to mislead consumers<\/em><\/a> about what they\u2019re trying to get them to buy.\u201d The Association maintains that use of the word \u201cmeat\u201d for plant-based alternatives is unethical and puts real beef products at a disadvantage. They advocate for labeling laws that \u201censure a level playing field<\/em><\/a> for real beef products.\u201d\n\nCattle ranchers and meat producers argue that they want to maintain control<\/em><\/a> of the labeling industry and ensure that consumers understand what they are purchasing. Bill Pigott, a Republican state representative from Mississippi, draws a comparison to the dairy industry. He explains that \u201calmonds don\u2019t produce milk<\/em><\/a>\u201d and yet they are allowed to label their products as \u201cmilk.\u201d Pigott says he fears that the meat industry will lose control<\/em><\/a> of important nomenclature in a similar fashion, which will ultimately harm the industry.\n\nLobbyists and organizations like the Association have introduced legislation in twenty-four states<\/em><\/a> to ban the use of the word \u201cmeat\u201d on all plant-based alternative products. This legislation has been enacted in many states, including Montana<\/em><\/a>, Missouri<\/em><\/a>, Mississippi<\/em><\/a>, South Dakota<\/em><\/a>, Wyoming<\/em><\/a>, Arkansas<\/em><\/a>, and Louisiana<\/em><\/a>. These state laws place severe restrictions on what types of products are allowed to use terms like<\/em><\/a> \u201cmeat,\u201d \u201csausage,\u201d \u201cjerky,\u201d \u201cburger,\u201d or \u201chot dog.\u201d Under this new legislation, a product can only be marketed as \u201cmeat\u201d if it was produced from animal flesh<\/em><\/a>. Any plant-based alternative cannot display this nomenclature.\n\nWhile this legislation has been successfully enacted in several states, there has been significant backlash. Specifically in response to the legislation in Arkansas, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Good Food Institute, and the Animal Legal Defense fund sued<\/em><\/a> the state of Arkansas. They argued that this new legislation violated<\/em><\/a> the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s due process clause by \u201cimproperly censoring truthful speech and creating consumer confusion in order to shore up the state\u2019s meat and rice industries.\u201d The lawsuit also asserts that there is no evidence of consumer confusion and \u201cthe state of Arkansas is seeking<\/em><\/a> to limit access to healthier, more sustainable food choices for its constituents, and it is doing so to benefit the animal agriculture industry.\u201d Several other states<\/em><\/a> with restrictive labeling legislation are facing similar challenges.\n\nIn October of 2019, the federal government drafted their own legislation. The Real Marketing Edible Artificials Truthfully Act (\u201cthe Real MEAT Act<\/em><\/a>\u201d) of 2019 was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Agriculture. This bipartisan bill aims to require any meat alternative products to be marketed as \u201cimitation meat<\/em><\/a>.\u201d The federal bill states that<\/em><\/a> \u201cany imitation meat food product, beef, or beef product shall be deemed to be misbranded unless its label bears, in type of uniform size and prominence, the word \u2018imitation\u2019 immediately before or after the name of the food and a statement that clearly indicates the product is not derived from or does not contain meat.\u201d\n\nSpecifically, the Real MEAT Act draws a hard line between the nomenclature used for actual meat products and plant-based alternatives. The bill defines beef products<\/em><\/a> as \u201cany product containing edible meat tissue harvested in whole form from domesticated Bos indicus or Bos taurus cattle.\u201d In contrast, imitation meat food products are defined<\/em><\/a> as \u201cany product manufactured to appear as a meat food product or any food product which approximates the aesthetic qualities (primarily texture, flavor, and appearance) and\/or chemical characteristics of specific types of meat but does not contain any meat, meat food product, or meat byproduct ingredients.\u201d\n\nThe Real MEAT Act has not passed the House yet and was referred<\/em><\/a> to the Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture after facing harsh criticism. The executive director of the Plant Based Foods Association, an organization advocating for the benefits of meat alternatives, argues that the Real MEAT Act is trying to fix a problem that does not exist. She explains<\/em><\/a>, \u201cno one is trying to trick consumers into thinking they are buying meat from animals.\u201d Other organizations maintain that the value in plant-based products is the very fact that they lack meat, thus the producers of plant-based products are not aiming<\/em><\/a> to confuse consumers.\n\nIt is currently unclear how the House will vote on the Real MEAT Act. However, without a federal bill, individual state legislation will continue to govern how plant-based alternatives are marketed and consumed. Until the federal government steps in, this debate will differ across state lines but how Americans consume \u201cmeat\u201d will continue to change.\n\nSuggested Citation: Nicole Jaeckel, Marketing Meat Alternatives: Does Nomenclature Matter?<\/em>, Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol\u2019y, The Issue Spotter, (Mar. 27, 2020), https:\/\/live-journal-of-law-and-public-policy.pantheonsite.io\/marketing-meat-alternatives-does-nomenclature-matter\/.\n\n <\/strong>\n\n\"Facetune_31-05-2018-22-19-40\"Nicole Jaeckel is a J.D. candidate for the class of 2021 at Cornell Law School. In 2018, she obtained her B.A. in Political Communication from The George Washington University\u2019s School of Media and Public Affairs. Nicole is an associate writer for The Issue Spotter. She also serves as an associate writer for the LII Supreme Court Bulletin and the IT Director for Cornell Law Students Association.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Source) In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (\u201cFDA\u201d) approved the Impossible Burger, one of the first plant-based meat alternatives of its kind. The Impossible Burger gained nation wide attention for its eerie resemblance to real meat \u2013 specifically it\u2019s blood-like color and taste. While the Impossible Burger initially faced some backlash, it opened…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5122,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions\/5122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/publications.lawschool.cornell.edu\/jlpp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}