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I don't see how this is controversial. Imagine Pepsi selling a drink called "not Coca Cola" or Google advertising "not ChatGPT" or "not Outlook". Literally the
by tomp 3y ago
I don't see how this is controversial.
Imagine Pepsi selling a drink called "not Coca Cola" or Google advertising "not ChatGPT" or "not Outlook". Literally the only purpose is customer confusion and piggy-backing on a successful brand to save on marketing.
In general I don't quite understand the "meat-envy" displayed by many vegans. As if there aren't tons of extremely delicious "vegan-original" foods (fried tofu, falafel, rice bowl with mushrooms & avocado, ...).
- cianmm 3y agoA difference might be that your examples are all trademarked words. Milk isn't. From a marketing perspective saying something is a "milk alternative" or whatever is mostly to market to non-vegans so that they know what to buy if they're looking to get into that area. [Shaky unverifiable source - I know somebody who develops these products for large companies]
- c00lio 3y agoTrademarks protect the market position of one particular company. Similarly, protected origin designations and protected product names reserve words for any producer of "the original, proper" thing. Thereby protecting not only the producers' interests but also the consumer, because misleading labeling and advertising is prevented. If you'd allow stuff like "milk alternative", you'd quickly get "<huge>MILK</huge><tiny color=unreadable>alternative</tiny>".
- PavleMiha 3y agoJust don’t allow that, it doesn’t seem to be a slippery slope at all. Is there any evidence people are getting fooled by oat milk or nut cheese?
- c00lio 3y agoWell, I'd be fooled by "nut cheese". I'd expect cheese with nuts in it...
- nailer 3y agoPerhaps the closest analogy is “method Champagnois” for sparkling white wine produced using champagne grape varieties and techniques, before the word champagne became protected, and “method Champagnois” thus became illegal. Not making a judgement either way. Personally, I feel these alternatives work in the same place as milk (coffee, cereal, et cetera), but are nutritionally very different from milk so I can appreciate both sides of this argument.
- elliekelly 3y agoSo then prohibit misleading product packaging rather than prohibiting a specific phrase.
- c00lio 3y agoMisleading packaging has forbidden for ages. Didn't really work out since companies will always try to game the system, binding up resources in endless court battles around the definition of "misleading" and "what font size is legally conspicuous enough yet will still be overlooked by the customer". Therefore the next step was to make very clear and very simple rules around "what is misleading?". One of them is something like "milk is the secretion from the udder of mamalians, nothing else".
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoThat’s why make labels standardized. In fact they already are in a lot of ways. Nutrition facts, ingredients, allergens, etc.
- c00lio 3y agoYes, and one of the standards is (unsurprisingly) not using misleading terminology such as "milk" for non-milk products. Just label it as "white oat drink" and you are fine...
- exDM69 3y agoUnlike all your examples, milk is not trademarked. Additionally, there are a lot of examples where the term milk is used to describe a non-dairy product. E.g. coconut milk. This is nowhere nearly as clear cut as you portray it.
- nicktelford 3y agoThis is a false-equivalence. "Milk" is not a trademarked brand name like "Coca Cola" or "ChatGPT", it's a category of food/drink. You can't trademark "milk" in the same way you can't trademark "sausages". A better comparison would be "Not Cola", which AFAIK would be an acceptable name for a drink. See literally all smaller Cola brands which include the word "Cola" in their name.
- tomp 3y agoWell some people in the UK, and myself, disagree. The purpose of a “brand” is to reduce confusion. So that customers know what they’re buying. So I don’t want to buy “an artificially manufactured food in the category of milk”, I want to buy milk.
- dayglo 3y agoWouldn’t the best way to fix this be to just require anyone selling cow’s milk to put ‘cow’s milk’ on the label? Have you ever bought goats milk by mistake ?
- globular-toast 3y agoMilk isn't a brand. It's just a word. It's like the words "cola" or "Email client". Milk is essentially just an emulsion of fat with sugar and protein. The only one that is actually important for us is human milk. Otherwise it's all just food and should be called whatever people want to call it.
- boblert 3y ago[dead]
- Double_a_92 3y agoMilks and Sausage are not brand names. It would be more like a company advertising themselves as "not a search-engine".
- numpad0 3y agoMostly agreed, at some point it’s just false advertising. If carrots should not be labeled “vegetable sausages”, so shouldn’t be “this is not *MILK* : a vegetarian parody” allowed. It’ll be especially troublesome when there are nutritional expectations.
- chimprich 3y ago> In general I don't quite understand the "meat-envy" displayed by many vegans. In general I don't understand the desire to insert a comment of this kind into every discussion about vegetarian/vegan foods. That people might be vegetarian but also like the taste of meat seems such an obvious reason I don't understand why it doesn't occur to people.
- sebastianz 3y ago> In general I don't quite understand the "meat-envy" displayed by many vegans. As if there aren't tons of extremely delicious "vegan-original" foods Because many vegans were meat eaters earlier in life. So they sometimes crave a tasty burger or sausage or salami, or a cheese-based dish for the same reason you do: they grew up eating those foods and learned to like them.
- simoom22 3y agoIs milk a brand name? I thought it was just a word for boob juice.
- lock-the-spock 3y agoYou are confusing branding with product description. Thunderbird can call itself 'a better programme' but not 'a better outlook'. There is also no "meat envy". But you might like a dish called 'chicken tikka' and no longer eat chicken. Or you might be a meat eater unfamiliar with vegan products but want to cook for your son-in-law something similar as to what you cook for the rest of the family. Why should you not be able to buy a product called 'fake chicken' to be use as an alternative ingredient. As long as the advertisement is not misreading (claiming in big letters 'chicken fingers' but actually in small script adding 'not made of chicken') there is literally no reason to prohibit such convenience labeling and naming schemes.
- i2cmaster 3y agoI'm typing this on a machine literally running "not Unix."