An Arkansas federal court has granted Turtle Island Foods SPC, which does business as Tofurky Co., a preliminary injunction preventing the enforcement against it of an Arkansas law prohibiting the use of meat-related terms to describe plant-based products on food packaging. Turtle Island Foods SPC v. Soman, No. 19-0514 (E.D. Ark., C. Div., entered December 11, 2019). The court found that Tofurky "likely faces ruinous civil liability, enormous operational costs, or a cessation of in-state operations" if the statute is enforced against it. The court granted the preliminary injunction despite Arkansas' indication that it "does not intend to begin enforcement" until the constitutional challenge is resolved because "there is nothing in the record binding the State to that position" and "the State has made no assurances that it will not levy retroactive penalties for Tofurky's alleged violations of Act 501 between the law's passage and this litigation's conclusion."
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The Center for Food Safety (CFS) has filed a petition urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide transparency on the levels of drug residue in meat, poultry and egg products found as part of the agency's National Residue Program (NRP). The advocacy group specifically requests that all approved animal drugs be incorporated in the NRP; that the NRP use "the best available methods that provide for the lowest limits of detection and quantitation"; that USDA establish "clear definitions and parameters for minimum levels of applicability"; and that the agency "improve the NRP reporting mechanisms to provide publicly-available information on all samples with positive residues regardless of whether the levels detected exceed minimum levels of applicability or [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] tolerances."
The National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation have filed a lawsuit against the secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture alleging that Proposition 12, which was passed in November 2018 and established minimum requirements for the confinement of farm animals, "has thrown a giant wrench into the workings of the interstate market in pork." Nat'l Pork Producers Council v. Ross, No. 19-2324 (S.D. Cal., filed December 5, 2019). The complaint alleges that "Proposition 12 institutes a wholesale change in how pork is raised and marketed in this country. Its requirements are inconsistent with industry practices and standards, generations of producer experience, scientific research, and the standards set by other states. They impose on producers costly mandates that substantially interfere with commerce among the states in hogs and whole pork meat. And they impose these enormous costs on pork producers, which will ultimately increase costs for…
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) have sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) urging the agency to "adopt a policy of greater transparency with respect to the microbiological testing" that the agency collects from meat slaughter and processing establishments. The letter cites a Salmonella outbreak in ground beef announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and notes that investigators "have not identified a single, common supplier" for the affected meat. DeLauro and Gillibrand urge USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service to provide data on the samples it collects to "allow companies, government researchers and members of the scientific community to identify links between pathogenic strains" found in meat samples and in patients identified as affected by the Salmonella outbreak. The Congress members request answers to four questions before December 13, 2019, including an identification of which establishments had samples that resulted…
A plaintiff has filed a putative class action alleging that Burger King Corp. represented its Impossible Whopper in association with the Impossible Burger, which is "well known as a meat-free and vegan meat alternative," but cooked the Impossible Whoppers "on the same grills as its traditional meat products, thus covering the outside of the Impossible Whopper's meat-free patties with meat by-product." Williams v. Burger King Corp., No. 19-24755 (S.D. Fla., filed November 18, 2019). Burger King advertised the Impossible Whopper as "100% Whopper" and "0% Beef," leading the plaintiff, a vegan, to rely "on Defendant's deceptive representations about the Impossible Whopper and believing that the 'Impossible' vegan meat patty would be prepared in a manner that maintained its qualities as a vegan (meat-free) burger patty." The plaintiff alleges breach of contract, unjust enrichment and violation of Florida's consumer-protection statute and seeks class certification, damages and a declaration "that Defendant be…
Reps. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.) have introduced the Real Marketing Edible Artificials Truthfully (MEAT) Act, which would "codify the definition of beef for labeling purposes, reinforce existing misbranding provisions to eliminate consumer confusion, and enhance enforcement measures available to the [U.S. Department of Agriculture] if the [Food and Drug Administration] fails to take appropriate action," according to Marshall's press release. "The lack of any Federal definition of 'beef' or 'beef products' for the purposes of meat food product labeling has led some to begin marketing imitation products as meat or beef, creating the opportunity for marketplace confusion and consumer fraud that Congress originally charged the various Federal food regulatory agencies with the duty to prevent," the bill's text states. "Imitation products labeled as beef or as beef products create confusion in the marketplace. These products are in direct violation of the 'Congressional Findings and Declaration of Policy'…
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) has submitted a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Office of Food Additive Safety arguing that the sale of "uncooked Impossible Burgers to consumers in grocery stores" is unlawful because FDA "received timely objections to the agency's approval of Impossible Foods' color additive petition." CFS argues that its six objections to FDA's ruling should have automatically stayed the effective date of the rule. The letter describes grocery stores' advertising promising the availability of Impossible Burgers, asserting that "such sales are unlawful until there is a valid color additive regulation in place." The advocacy group concludes by urging FDA to "issue a recall notice to these and other retailers that are currently selling uncooked Impossible Burgers in their grocery stores."
A Missouri federal court has reportedly declined to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the state from enforcing its law defining meat as derived from animals. The law requires plant-based or laboratory-grown food to feature a label indicating its source. Turtle Island Foods, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Good Food Institute have reportedly appealed the judge’s denial.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released guidance on the use of "medically important antimicrobials" in "food-producing animals." The guidance describes a voluntary process that "will help ensure new animal drugs containing antimicrobials of human importance are administered only under veterinary oversight and only for therapeutic uses." The agency will accept comments on the guidance until December 24, 2019.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that two executives of a meatpacking plant pleaded guilty to selling 775,000 pounds of adulterated meat—"including whole cow hearts labeled as 'ground beef'"— for more than $1 million to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The executives' company, West Texas Provisions, falsely marketed its products as inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to DOJ; the company allegedly "kept the whole hearts offsite until inspectors left the premises, then processed the hearts on nights and weekends, when inspectors weren't working," and "[t]hey often kept the lights off inside the facility while processing the uninspected meat, hid uninspected meat in the freezer while inspectors were in the building, and distracted inspectors from looking at the product." The defendants face up to five years in prison.
