Contact: media@aldf.org
San Antonio — The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled in favor of the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) and the Good Food Institute, representing TooFurky and the Plant-Based Foods Association (PBFA), and the state’s Reject Overall, the lawsuit challenges a law that imposes vague and burdensome disclosure standards on companies that produce plant-based meat, even though these products clearly comply with federal law. Plant-based meat products are clearly marketed and packaged, do not deceive consumers, and comply with federal regulations under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Yet they are targeted by this protectionist state law designed to protect Texas animal producers over Texas consumers. The law went into effect on September 1, 2023.
In August 2023, ALDF and the Good Food Institute will Litigation This Act amended the dormant Commerce Clause, Due Process Clause, Supremacy Clause, and First Amendment Constitutional. plaintiff The Texas law alleges that it imposes burdensome, impractical and unclear additional disclosure requirements on plant-based meat producers that go beyond federal law. Tofurky and PBFA also argue that it adds a patchwork of state law labeling requirements intended to make nationwide sale of plant-based products impossible. Moreover, to comply with the law, plant-based meat companies would be required to redesign each product label and corresponding marketing materials, which would fail to communicate the nature and content of the product in a manner that complies with federal law, eviscerating the companies’ ability to market and sell their products on a national scale. Texas law also requires that an additional disclaimer be displayed on the front of the product packaging, in the same (or larger) font size and prominent location as the “surrounding text,” qualifying that the plant-based product is not in fact meat.
“By adding unnecessary and unlawful requirements to products sold by plant-based producers, Texas is tilting the market toward animal-based products, reducing consumer choice and increasing confusion,” said Amanda Howell, managing attorney for ALDF. “There are many reasons consumers may want to choose plant-based products that align with their values, whether that be for animal welfare, the environment or their health, and we will continue this case in court to ensure consumers have a choice.”
“We’re pleased to see the court let the law and the state’s legal maneuver stand for what it is,” said TooFurky CEO Jayme Athos. “The law’s purpose is protectionist and unconstitutional, and thanks to this ruling, the state can’t stop us from proving that in court. Texas has chosen to interfere with consumers’ rights to knowingly consume the products they love and the rights of plant-based companies to meet those consumer demands. This law benefits no one except the animal agriculture special interests from whom these bills originate. At last, it appears we have a court that refuses to let protectionism and cronyism get in the way of legal principles that have long formed the bedrock of our country. This ruling shows that in Texas, anti-free market policies will not get in the way of innovation and consumer choice.”
“This Texas law will only confuse and frustrate consumers in our state who want plant-based foods,” said Marjorie Mulhall, PBFA’s senior director of policy. “In fact, plant-based retail sales in the U.S. It has increased 79% in the past five years to more than $8 billion.PBFA and our partners will continue to fight to ensure a level playing field for our member companies and their products.”
“Texas consumers should not be confused about the food they buy, and this law’s unconstitutional labeling requirements for certain producers do nothing to protect consumers,” said Maddie Cohen, senior regulatory attorney at GFI. “We will continue to challenge Texas’ law so that consumers, not the government, can pick the winners and losers in the marketplace.”
Federal courts Recognized The likelihood that consumers would be confused about plant-based naming conventions is “highly unlikely” and “implausible,” the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has argued. Analyzed naming conventions Similar to Tooferkies, the court found it impossible for consumers to “believe that veggie bacon contains pork, that flourless chocolate cake contains flour, or that e-books are made of paper.”
The Texas law is similar to previous meat labeling laws passed in Texas that aimed to stifle truthful commercial speech from plant-based food companies. Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouriand Oklahomaand other states have enacted similar laws. Many of these laws have been similarly challenged by Tofurky and the ALDF. In December 2019, these organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the Arkansas law, and the courts halted enforcement of the law, finding it an unconstitutional restriction on Tofurky’s free speech. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also found that Louisiana’s law could only be applied in the unlikely scenario that plant-based meat producers intentionally tried to deceive consumers into thinking their products came from slaughtered animals, essentially rendering Louisiana’s law irrelevant. In the Missouri and Oklahoma cases, the courts ruled that the law did not apply to plant-based producers.
