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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Scott Gottlieb

FDA Chief Scott “An Almond Doesn’t Lactate” Gottlieb Resigns

Scott Gottlieb, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and better known around The Spoon as the guy who brought the debate over what to label “meat” and “milk” to national attention, announced his resignation from THE FDA today. It will go into effect next month.

In the age of Trump, it’s easy to assume an ulterior motive for any sudden prominent agency head departure. But according to The Washington Post, Gottlieb wanted to spend more time with his family in Connecticut, and the White House did not ask for his resignation.

Whatever the reason, we’ve spilled our fair share of ink covering Mr. Gottlieb’s tenure at the FDA, as he thrust the agency into the debate over which government body should oversee the regulation of emerging lab-grown or “cultured” meat products and what they should be called. He even held a public meeting on the topic to take comment as it developed those new regulations. Meat lobbying groups were insistent that only products derived from animals that were born, raised and slaughtered could be labeled as meat.

Given that cultured meat is still a ways off, Gottleib’s prominent work in the space was more of an attempt to get ahead of an issue before it literally hit the market, and to a certain extent, he succeeded. The FDA and USDA later agreed to a framework that divvied up regulatory responsibilities for the forthcoming cultured meat, and he did bring the labeling debate to national attention.

But Gottlieb probably got a little more attention than he wanted when he extended the labeling debate over to “milk.” At a Politico Summit last summer, Gottlieb said the FDA would start more strictly enforcing existing rules around what could be marketed as milk, a move that could spell trouble for the booming plant-based milk industry. FDA guidelines say that milk comes from a lactating animal, which made Gottlieb quip “An almond doesn’t lactate.” This joke caught the ear of Stephen Colbert, who mocked Gottlieb, saying ““If it ain’t from a mammal, you can’t call it milk; it has to be ‘soy juice’ and ‘almond sweat.”

The FDA Wants Your Opinion on What Should be Called “Milk”

Have you ever gone to the grocery, bought a carton of milk only to get home and find that you grabbed soy milk instead of the more traditional cow’s milk? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to know!

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb posted a statement on his organization’s website today saying that his agency is seeking public comments on the ongoing debate over what can and can’t be labeled as “milk.” In explaining the rationale for this discussion about labeling, Gottlieb writes:

The rising demand for plant-based products, like soy-based alternatives to cheese and nut-based alternatives to milk, has created a growing number of new food choices in supermarket aisles. However, these products are not foods that have been standardized under names like “milk” and “cheese.” The FDA has concerns that the labeling of some plant-based products may lead consumers to believe that those products have the same key nutritional attributes as dairy products, even though these products can vary widely in their nutritional content. It is important that we better understand consumers’ expectations of these plant-based products compared to dairy products.

Earlier this year, Gottlieb indicated that his agency would begin to enforce the existing regulation around what can be marketed as milk. Gottlieb made headlines when he noted that the current standard for defining milk is that it comes from a lactating animal before going on to say “almonds don’t lactate” (a comment soundly mocked by Stephen Colbert).

While you may not have your own late night talk show, you can make your voice heard on the topic. As Gottlieb goes on to explain, the FDA is reaching out to the public for comment on the topic:

We’re on a fast track to take a fresh look at the labeling of products that are being positioned in the marketplace as substitutes for dairy products. And, today, we’ve taken the first step in this process by issuing a request for information (RFI) in the Federal Register to solicit comments and feedback from the public to gain more insight into how consumers use plant-based alternatives and how they understand terms like “milk” or “cheese” when used to label products made, for example, from soy, peas or nuts. We’re interested to know if consumers are aware of, and understand, the nutritional characteristics and differences among these products — and between these products and dairy — when they make dietary choices for themselves and their families.

While it’s being framed as a discussion around consumer information and protection, the whole debate smacks more of protecting existing industries. Sales of plant-based milks are up while cow milk sales have dropped. Dairy and other agricultural associations have lobbied Gottlieb to enforce the existing regulation. Forcing plant-based “milks” to instead refer to themselves as “beverages” on all their branding could have a negative impact on sales.

Milk isn’t the only product label looking at being disrupted. There is a whole other debate raging about what can and can’t be called “meat” as cell-based meat and other plant-based meat alternatives come to market. The lines there are similarly drawn, with traditional ranchers and cattelmen lobbying to keep the status quo.

And just so there’s no confusion on this, if you have thoughts on the topic of “milk,” you can visit the Federal Register tomorrow, Sept. 28, and leave a comment.

Got Milk? Are You Sure? Labeling Debate Moves on to Plant-Based Drinks

It looks like the debate over what we label cultured/lab grown/clean “meat” will not be isolated to the deli case. If the comments made by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb today are any indication, there will be another drawn out battle over what we label as “milk.”

Speaking at the Politico Pro Summit today, Gottlieb said that his agency would start more strictly enforcing rules over what can be marketed as “milk.” This could potentially be bad news for companies behind plant-based milks such as soy and almond, etc..

Just last week the FDA held a public meeting on what to label lab grown meat, spurred on in part by complaints from the US Cattleman’s Association which believe only products derived from animals born and raised should be labeled “beef.” The public meeting was a move by the FDA to get ahead of the debate as lab-grown meat is not available commercially yet.

Gottlieb’s comments today reflect just how far behind the curve the FDA is when talking about or enforcing regulations regarding “milk,” as plant-based varietals are pretty well entrenched in supermarkets right now. In fact, non-dairy milk sales have shot up 61 percent since 2012, and new “milk” varietals keep popping up: cashew milk, quinoa milk and even something like Perfect Day is on the way, which makes true milk from yeast.

Much like the cattlemen, dairy farmers are none too happy with these upstarts getting labeled as milk. Last week, 37 state farm bureaus and other agricultural associations sent the FDA a letter rebuking the agency for not enforcing its guidelines when it comes to labeling milk. Among the complaints was that “Plant-based beverages are not held to the same ‘Standards of Identity’ and yet they share in the benefits of using the term ‘milk’ on their packaging.”

Standards of Identity is a key phrase here, and one that Gottlieb mentions in his talk. It’s the rules set out by the government to define what a product is (how many tomatoes need to be in a product to make it “ketchup,” etc.) Gottlieb mentions that in the FDA’s standard of identity for milk, the regulations say it needs to come from a lactating animal. “An almond doesn’t lactate,” he said jokingly.

Gottleib said that up until now, the FDA had not been enforcing its own standard of identity, but will start doing so. But before he can do that, he has to go through some bureaucratic hoops like notification and public comment. This process, Gottlieb said, will probably take a year and he concedes will most likely result in his agency getting sued by those behind plant-based milk, which could extend the process even further.

Though he made the almond lactation quip, Gottlieb seems to understand that the fight over milk is going to be a tough one. He points out that while the FDA has a definition of what milk is, so does the actual dictionary, which Webster’s defines as:

  1. a : a fluid secreted by the mammary glands of females for the nourishment of their young
    b (1) : milk from an animal and especially a cow used as food by people
    (2) : a food product produced from seeds or fruit that resembles and is used similarly to cow’s milk, coconut milk, soy milk
  2. : a liquid resembling milk in appearance: such as
    a : the latex of a plant
    b : the contents of an unripe kernel of grain

You can watch all of Gottlieb’s comments on milk in a queued up video here.

Milk, it seems, will be yet another area of our complicated modern lives that will become controversial and force us to pick sides (I’m Team plant-based MILK all the way!). And it surely won’t end there. As science creates new methods of recreating existing foods (meat, fish, milk, yogurt, ice cream…), established players will fight to hold on to their dominance and do what they can to thwart disruption.

What do you think? Are you pro soy milk, or would you prefer a soy-derived non-dairy beverage?