Declaring a Louisiana food-labeling law unconstitutional, a federal judge has granted a plant-based meat products company’s motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the state’s agricultural commissioner.
Federal Judge Brian Jackson of the Middle District of Louisiana issued the opinion March 28, siding with the maker of Tofurky, plaintiff Turtle Island Foods. The company argued that the state’s 2019 Truth in Labeling of Food Products Act censors truthful commercial speech by barring companies that manufacture non-meat food products from representing their goods as “meat” or using historical terms that refer to meat.
“(The) defendant has failed to address why alternative, less-restrictive means, such as a disclaimer, would not accomplish its goal of preventing consumer confusion,” Jackson said in his opinion. “... Accordingly, the act is an impermissible restriction on (the) plaintiff’s commercial speech.”
Dr. Mike Strain, the commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry, said the state may appeal the ruling.
“We are in the process of reading and digesting the ruling of the federal district court,” Strain told the Louisiana Record in an email. “By law, I am charged with the enforcement of this law. In this case, it appears the court may have misapplied the law. On the advice of counsel, we will certainly consider seeking an appeal."
Defendant Strain reviewed Turtle Island Foods’ labels and found that they were not at odds with the state law, according to Jackson’s ruling. But the company maintained that the provisions of the statute were a threat to its operations, the opinion says.
The labeling law imposes fines of $500 per day against companies that market plant-based meat goods using words such as “burger” or “sausage,” according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund, one of the groups that represented Turtle Island Foods in the litigation.
The company has also argued that it would be excessively expensive to use specialized labels in Louisiana for its plant-based products to comply with the law.
Producers of meat products have made efforts to make plant-based products less appealing by suggesting they be called “veggie pucks” instead of “veggie burgers” and “vegan tubes” rather than “vegan hot dogs,” according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund.