i- Officials are urging a federal court to dismiss Tofurky’s challenge of Texas’s new food labeling law, arguing that the plant-based meat maker has only made “hypothetical” allegations and lacks standing.
- Texas Senate Bill 664 asserts that analogues of meat, poultry, seafood and eggs will be deemed misbranded unless the product label “bears in prominent type equal to or greater in size than the surrounding type and in close proximity to the name of the product one of the following: ‘analogue’; ‘meatless’; ‘plant-based’; ‘made from plants’; or a similar qualifying term or disclaimer intended to clearly communicate to a consumer the contents of the product.” For cultivated meat products, it imposes an identical labeling requirement with one of the following terms: “cell-cultured”; “lab-grown”; or something similar.
- Tofurky claims that, “The law institutes an unreasonably burdensome and protectionist trade barrier that contravenes and is preempted by federal law and imposes vague standards on Tofurky and other plant-based meat producers who use words associated with meat products to describe products that are clearly marketed and packaged as 100% plant-based/vegan.”
- In its motion to dismiss, Texas counters that the legal action is at best premature and that Tofurky lacks standing as to the law’s provisions related to cell-cultured, since the company is solely a plant-based organization. “It cannot be overstated that Plaintiffs have not clearly and properly alleged what, if any, provisions of the Amendment they cannot meet,” according to Texas.
Texas Urges Federal Court to Toss Tofurky Challenge of Labeling Law
Friday, January 5, 2024
