- cross-posted to:
- vegan@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- vegan@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43030335
Plant-based drink maker Oatly has lost a long-running legal battle over its use of the word “milk” in its marketing.
The Swedish company tried to trademark the slogan “post-milk generation” in the UK in 2021 but Dairy UK, the representative body for British dairy farmers, objected.
Following rulings in several courts, the UK Supreme Court on Wednesday said Oatly could neither trademark nor use the phrase “post-milk generation”.
The long-running dispute has centred on Dairy UK’s argument that, under trademark law, the term “milk” can only be used to refer to products that come from an animal.
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Okay Europe you wanna end up like America keep doing capitalist bullshit like this
This seems like an unpopular opinion but I am very happy with this.
I see this as protection for consumers buying and understanding what is actually in the food item.
In Norway most farms are still family owned with high tariffs on many imported products directly competing. The main dairy producer is a co-op of all the farms, and this protects them from competion from shit products from Kraft or other multi national companies peddeling their over processed crap that barley deserves the name edible.
MlLK
done aka MLLK but with a lower case l.
Oatley. “We can’t call it milk”
I’m reminded of when Colbert talked about how Big Dairy wants things like almond milk to be called “nut juice”.
Alpro had a dispute with their soy milk too in Italy.
In Italian, milk is “latte” (double t, important for the question).
They got said that they can’t call the product “latte” because it is not milk as it doesn’t come from an animal.
They created a new packaging with a huge writing saying: “Questo non è LATE” (with a single T). It could roughly be translated to English as “This is not MYLK” . They are still selling it because they are not selling milk.
Edit: apparently it’s not just an Italian thing as they sell it in English as “not MLK”! Funny tho, I almost got the name right without knowing it!
Here, those are called “Not MLK”. I didn’t realize they translated it for some countries.
I didn’t even notice that it was “MLK” and not “MILK.”
It’s similar to the product “I can’t believe it’s not butter,” a margarine that can’t be marketed as butter because it’s not made from dairy.
The first time I tried it, and it didn’t melt on a hot potato, I said “I can believe it’s not butter.”
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Begs the question, where are the nipples on the oats?
Really though, do they have to call it milk? I mean what even is plant based milk? It isn’t milk. Are they that afraid of people knowing what they’re getting that they can’t call it what it is or give it a friendly name that doesn’t mean something it’s not?
They need to talk to whoever named hot dogs. We’re all know what they are and yet they’re still popular. They aren’t dogs and they’re sold cold so… clever marketing?
These have been called milk for far longer than this has been a supposed issue for.
This isn’t restricted to things humans drink. Any white-ish liquid had a chance of being labeled milk. See also crop milk, milkweed, milk of magnesia, discus milk, glacial milk.
Or for a food product with a similar fight, see peanut butter. In Dutch the fight resulted in it being called pindakaas (peanut cheese).
Really though, do they have to call it milk? I mean what even is plant based milk? It isn’t milk. Are they that afraid of people knowing what they’re getting that they can’t call it what it is or give it a friendly name that doesn’t mean something it’s not?
I find it really weird when Big Dairy (and Big Meat) are overly sensitive about what competing products call themselves.
It’s not like people are going to get confused about what is what. Big Dairy just want to force people to name their product something unappealing.
It’s not weird at all, they just don’t like competition.
They are weird compared to society, but self consistent.
We’ve been calling magnesium hydroxide “milk of magnesia” for 150 years. This isn’t some new, confusing thing.
Coconut milk would like to have a word with you
Also soy milk and almond milk.
Really though, do they have to call it milk? I mean what even is plant based milk? It isn’t milk. Are they that afraid of people knowing what they’re getting that they can’t call it what it is or give it a friendly name that doesn’t mean something it’s not?
Nobody particularly wants to have to come up with branding because the dairy lobby are assholes.
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