Texas governor signs new plant-based meat labeling law. Is it constitutional?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott just signed Senate Bill 664 into law in Texas, a state where 70 percent of farmland is devoted to farms.

The law requires prominent labeling for plant-based or fermented alternatives to meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs that must state that the products are “analog,” “meatless,” “plant-based,” “plant-based,” or similar terms.

Tofurki

For cultured meats, Texas law requires similar labeling protocols and suggests using terms such as “cell-cultured,” “lab-grown” or comparable language.

Farmed meat is still not sold in the United States, and plant-based products already feature mandatory language in Texas law, as a selling point that does not contain animal meat.

However, the law — which is backed by the rancher advocacy group Texas Farm Bureau — was allegedly created to address consumer confusion surrounding these products. A 2020 survey of 1,200 Texas consumers found that one in five bought plant-based products thinking they contained animal meat.

But are the people of Texas—home to more than 29.5 million residents—really confused about the labeling of plant-based options or is something else going on?

Drake Jamali, legal expert at the nonprofit Good Food Institute (GFI), explains. “GFI shares the mission of ensuring transparency and consumer understanding of the food they purchase; However, Senate Bill 664 would impose requirements that are premature, unnecessary and could create serious economic impacts for small businesses,” Jamali said in a statement sent to VegNews.

“Simply put, Texas consumers are not misled about the food they buy, and this legislation will do nothing to protect consumers,” Jamali said. “Instead, this law could limit consumer choice while stifling innovation, free markets and free speech.”

Is the Texas labeling law unconstitutional?

The Texas law follows a set of so-called “truth in labeling” laws that have entered other states, including Mississippi, Louisiana, South Dakota and Arkansas.

All of these laws are designed to limit the use of certain “meat” terms, and impose penalties for the marketing use of terms such as “burger” and “sausage” on plant-based meat products, even with appropriate qualifications such as “vegan”. . or “meatless.”

Tofurki

Vegan brand The Tofurky Company, along with GFI and the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), successfully blocked these laws in Arkansas and Louisiana, where judges agreed that their laws would limit corporate free speech rights.

In Louisiana, the law’s sponsor, Representative Francis Thompson, acknowledged designing the law in an effort to protect Louisiana agricultural producers from increased competition from the plant-based meat industry.

Could the same be true of the new law in Texas, where the top three agricultural products are cattle, dairy products and broiler chickens?

“Through this legislation, Texas seeks to protect its large animal agriculture industry from increasing competition from markets that are not derived from slaughtered or caged animals but are not necessary for consumers and hinder business development in the free market,” said Jennifer House, ALDF Legislative Affairs Manager. , said in a statement sent to VegNews.

“We will continue to challenge what we believe are unconstitutional label censorship laws,” House said.

Cultivated meat makes regulatory progress

Farmed meat is a new meat production process where animals are largely taken out of the equation. Instead, meat is grown from animal cells in bioreactors, eliminating the need to slaughter billions each year for food.

In December 2021, Singapore made a historic decision to grant regulatory approval for the sale of farmed chicken produced by Good Meat – a sister company of vegan egg maker Eat Just. Currently, Singapore is the only region in the world where farmed meat can be sold — but that’s likely to change soon.

In November 2022, California-based company UPSIDE Foods received a Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), deeming its farm-raised chicken fillets safe for consumption in the US.

As this milestone is reached, companies working in the farmed meat space are moving to establish regulatory approvals, including Good Meat which also received a GRAS letter for its farmed chicken in March.

UPSIDE FOOD

Both are now working with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)—which is jointly responsible for approval with the FDA—to clear final regulatory hurdles before the farmed meat can be commercialized.

While plant-based meat products are made as alternatives to animal meat products, farmed meat is real meat made using an alternative process to environmentally harmful animal agriculture.

And, as alternative protein producers have pointed out, many consumers don’t eat meat because The way it is produced – by raising and slaughtering animals – but nonetheless.

However, Texas law clearly calls for farmed meat to be labeled in a way that calls out its method of production. Because farmed meat is regulated by both the USDA and the FDA — the federal agency — laws made by states may not be very influential but can hinder trade across state borders.

“Government should not pick winners and losers in the market. But this law does just that by imposing arbitrary and burdensome labeling requirements on certain producers,” Jamali said.

“These new labeling requirements could restrict interstate commerce by giving companies the choice between changing their labels or not doing business in the region,” Jamali said. “The law also impinges on the First Amendment rights of plant-based and farmed meat producers and may conflict with federal agencies’ jurisdiction over labeling.”

The Texas law will be enacted on September 1, 2023, and GFI, along with other industry players, will continue to examine the validity of the law.