The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association submitted comments to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration urging the agency to toughen up guidance for fake meat companies. NCBA wants FDA to prevent these companies from using misleading labels on plant-based products.
NCBA Senior Director of Government Affairs Sigrid Johannes tells Mid-West Farm Report how the association navigates lab-grown meat. She also comments on the “Make America Healthy Again” movement spearheaded by Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“I would say on the one hand, you have a lot of animal activist groups who have always been interested in lab-grown meat,” Johannes says. “But at the end of the day, it’s as processed a food as you can possibly get.”
NCBA’s comments urge the FDA to address misleading advertising on plant-based meat foods. Closing loopholes that allow plant-based companies to use terms like “beef” and imagery like the outline of a cow are important first steps that benefit real farmers, the association says.
“Companies selling fake meat should not be allowed to use misleading advertising or trade on beef’s good name,” says NCBA President Buck Wehrbein. “If you’re manufacturing products to replace beef that contain no real beef, you should not be using terms that are specific to livestock, especially legally defined terms like ‘meat.’”
He adds that these companies should not be able to use pictures of cattle or farmers in their labeling.
“If you have to hide behind the work of America’s livestock producers to sell your product, that says all you need to know about these inferior imitations,” Wehrbein says.
Additional guidance or rulemaking actions may follow in the coming months.
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