Maine’s two U.S. senators are among a group of lawmakers pushing for the federal government to crack down on the use of dairy terms on plant-based products.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins and independent Sen. Angus King want U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn to work with the Congress to prevent what they see as misuse of dairy terms on products that contain no dairy. Collins and King joined a bipartisan group of seven senators in asking for Hahn’s help in late January.
The senators said the use of dairy terms such as milk on “imitation products in the marketplace” is confusing for consumers. “This is both unfair to our hardworking dairy farmers and problematic for consumers, making it harder for Americans to make educated decisions regarding what they feed themselves and their families,” the senators wrote.
The International Food Information Council Foundation released survey results in 2018 that said “three-quarters of Americans understand that plant-based ‘milk’ products do not actually contain cow’s milk.”
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