The U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) has determined that "gruyere" is a generic name for the type of cheese and cannot be registered as a certification mark. Int'l Dairy Foods Assn. v. Interprofession du Gruyère & Syndicat Interprofessionel du Gruyère, No. 91232427 (T.T.A.B., entered August 5, 2020). Swiss and French associations attempted to register the mark and limit its use to cheese originating from the Swiss and French region of Gruyère, but several organizations filed notices of opposition, arguing that the term is generic. TTAB agreed, finding that a large number of cheese products sold in the United States as gruyere are produced outside of the Gruyère region, and consumer understanding of the term is not tied to a specific area. Accordingly, TTAB sustained the oppositions on the grounds that "gruyere" is generic.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is accepting comments on the Agricultural Marketing Service's proposed amendments to organic regulations concerning oversight and enforcement of the production, handling and sale of organic agricultural products. The proposed rule would require the use of National Organic Program Import Certificates for all organic products entering the United States and "[r]educe the types of uncertified entities in the organic supply chain that operate without USDA oversight—including importers, brokers, and traders of organic products." The proposed amendment also contains provisions that would clarify "the method of calculating the percentage of organic ingredients in a multi-ingredient product" and "conditions for establishing, evaluating, and terminating equivalence determinations with foreign government organic programs, based on an evaluation of their organic foreign conformity systems." Comments will be accepted until October 5, 2020.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that several manufacturers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have agreed to phase out the use of the material on food packaging, such as fast-food wrappers, to-go boxes and pizza boxes. The phase-out will begin in January 2021 and will occur over three years, with an additional 18 months anticipated to exhaust existing stocks of paper and paperboard products containing PFAS. The announcement coincides with a report from Toxic-Free Future purportedly finding PFAS in the packaging of several restaurants.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued final guidance on inorganic arsenic in rice cereals for infants that sets the action level at 100 micrograms per kilogram, or 100 parts per billion. "FDA has made the determination that this level is achievable based on sampling and testing results," the guidance states. "This guidance applies to all types of infant rice cereals (e.g., white-rice, brown-rice, organically grown, and conventionally grown). Though not binding, the action level for inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereals is intended to encourage manufacturers to reduce levels of inorganic arsenic in their products, thus reducing the possible risk for infants fed rice cereal."
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a call for experts to join the Technical Advisory Group on Food Safety: Safer Food for Better Health, which "will serve as an advisory body to WHO through providing technical guidance and inputs to support WHO's efforts and work in food safety by analyzing the current and future challenges in agri-food supply chains, advising innovative solutions and approaches with greatest public health benefits. Eventually, the aim is to strengthen national food safety systems and lower the burden of foodborne illnesses." The organization is taking online applications until August 21, 2020.
The Center for Food Safety and several food retailers have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) alleging that the agency "fell far short of fulfilling the promise of meaningful labeling" of bioengineered (BE) foods with its 2019 labeling rules. Natural Grocers v. Perdue, No. 20-5151 (N.D. Cal., filed July 27, 2020). The complaint takes issue with four aspects of USDA's BE labeling rule. First, the plaintiffs allege that allowing companies to use QR codes to disclose BE ingredients will "discriminate against major portions of the population—the poor, elderly, rural, and minorities—with lower percentages of smartphone ownership, digital expertise, or ability to afford data, or who live in areas in which grocery stores do not have internet bandwidth." The plaintiffs also object to the terminology USDA chose. The rule uses "bioengineered" rather than "genetically engineered" (GE) or "genetically modified" (GM) and prohibits the use of the latter…
A New York federal court has dismissed a putative class action alleging that Mondelez misled consumers by labeling Oreos as "always made with real cocoa" despite containing cocoa refined through an alkalizing process. Harris v. Mondelez Global LLC, No. 19-2249 (E.D.N.Y., entered July 28, 2020). The plaintiffs argued that the "representation 'real cocoa' is false, deceptive and misleading because consumers expect 'real cocoa' to indicate a higher quality cocoa than had the ingredient merely been accurately identified as 'cocoa' (minus the descriptor 'real')." "Plaintiffs do not dispute that the challenged products are in fact made with cocoa, which is fatal to their case," the court held. " Plaintiffs’ claims are trained on whether the product contains cocoa that is real, and the Oreos indisputably do contain cocoa, along with other ingredients." The court dismissed the claims with prejudice, finding the substantive issue could not be cured with better pleadings.
Several labor unions and their affiliated international union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), have filed a lawsuit urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) to "set aside a waiver program" for exceeding maximum line speeds on the grounds that FSIS adopted the program without adhering to procedures set forth in the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). U. Food & Comm. Workers Union, Local No. 227 v. USDA, No. 20-2045 (D.D.C., filed July 28, 2020). Under a 2014 rule, FSIS allows poultry plants to process birds at a rate of 140 birds per minute, but a 2018 waiver program allowing some plants to process up to 175 birds per minute has granted waivers to "nearly 43 percent of all plants subject to that regulation," according to the complaint. "In adopting the new waiver program, FSIS ignored concerns—raised by plaintiff UFCW and others—that increasing…
A plaintiff has filed a putative class action asserting that The Kroger Co.'s ground coffee packaging and labeling mislead consumers as to the amount of cups of coffee they can produce. Lorentzen v. Kroger Co., No. 20-6754 (C.D. Cal., filed July 28, 2020). "The scheme is straightforward," the complaint alleges. "Defendant sells the Products with the representation they contain enough ground coffee to yield a specific number of servings (e.g., 225 cups). This representation is prominently displayed on the front panel of the coffee canister. However, if the back-panel brewing instructions are followed, the canister produces significantly less than what is advertised on the front panel." For example, the plaintiff asserts, one product's labeling indicated it could be used to make "about 225 cups," but the contents would make about 110 cups if the direction of one tablespoon of coffee per six ounces of water is followed. The plaintiff seeks…
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a series of measures aimed at limiting advertising for foods high in salt, sugar and fat. The measures include a ban on ads for such foods before 9 p.m., the implementation of calorie counts on food menus and a ban on "buy one get one" deals on some types of foods. The government will also launch "a consultation to gather views and evidence on our current ‘traffic light’ labelling system to learn more about how this is being used by consumers and industry, compared to international examples." The announcement is a reversal from Johnson's previous stance on food advertising limits that he attributed to his diagnosis and recovery from COVID-19. "I've wanted to lose weight for ages and like many people I struggle with my weight," he wrote in The Daily Express. "I go up and down, but during the whole coronavirus epidemic and…
