The Food and Drug Administration has ruled that it’s allowable to use the term soy milk. A new Senate bill would forbid it.

FDA has released draft recommendations for manufacturers of plant-based milks to voluntarily label the product with its nutrient content if it is different from dairy milk’s.

For example, the label could state “contains lower amounts of Vitamin D and calcium than milk.”

The dairy industry has for decades been fighting the use of dairy terms for plant-based dairy alternatives such as soy, oat or almond milk. The industry says it violates FDA’s own standards of identity, which defines dairy terms as animal-based products.

The industry’s arguments have evolved from alternative products fraudulently capitalizing on the good reputation of dairy to misleading consumers about the nutritional content of alternative products and creating a public health concern, particularly for children.

In September 2018, FDA requested information on the labeling of plant-based milk alternatives (PBMA) with terms that include the names of dairy foods such as “milk” and received more than 13,000 comments.

“The FDA determined that consumers generally understand that PBMA do not contain milk and choose to purchase PBMA because they are not milk. However, many consumers may not be aware of the nutritional differences between milk and PBMA products,” the agency said in a press release on its draft guidance.

“The draft recommendations issued today should lead to providing consumers with clear labeling to give them the information they need to make informed nutrition and purchasing decisions…,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf.

FDA’s announcement “is a step toward labeling integrity for consumers of dairy products, even it falls short of ending the decades-old problem of misleading plant-based labeling using dairy terminology,” said Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of National Milk Producers Federation.

FDA’s proposed guidance will provide greater transparency that’s sorely needed for consumers to make informed choices, he said.

“Still, the decision to permit such beverages to continue inappropriately using dairy terminology violates FDA’s own standards of identity,” he said.

FDA’s last three commissioners have each acknowledged the problem of consumer confusion over nutritional content created by beverage labels that use dairy terms to imply qualities they simply don’t have. Medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, concur with this concern, he said.

“Today’s proposed guidance at least recognizes this reality: that nutritionally inconsistent concoctions of water, factory-processed powders and other additives simply don’t contain the same nutrition that milk provides,” he said.

His organization will continue to work in Congress to pass legislation to direct FDA to enforce its own rules and clarify that dairy terms are for true dairy products, he said.

The Good Food Institute, an international network of organizations advancing alternative proteins, applauded FDA’s recognition that consumers understand the difference between plant-based milk and cow’s milk and choose to purchase plant-based milk specifically because it is not cow’s milk. But despite that acknowledgement, the guidance misguidedly admonishes companies to make a direct comparison between their plant-based milks and cow’s milk, said Madeline Cohen, senior regulatory attorney at the institute.

“The guidance is premised on the idea that consumers are somehow confused by plant-based milks’ nutrition, despite the fact that FDA already requires key nutrients to be included on the Nutrition Facts panel,” she said.

This is a follow-up to an Associated Press story that appeared earlier.

This is a follow-up to an Associated Press story that appeared earlier.

The guidance only applies to plant-based alternative milk products and not to other dairy alternatives such as plant-based cheese or yogurt alternatives. The comment period on the draft guidance ends April 24.