Erin Sigrist, president of the Vermont Retail and Grocers Association, flashed back to the passage of Vermont’s GMO labeling law Tuesday as she listened to lawmakers talk about changing the way coconut, soy or rice beverages are labeled.
A bill introduced by the House Agriculture Committee would limit the use of the label “milk” to its traditional definition, the beverage that comes from cows and certain other hoofed animals.
Proponents of the bill say it would remove some competition as dairy farmers struggle with low milk prices, and it would clear up possible consumer confusion about the nutritional qualities of the vegetable-based milk substitutes. As milk substitutes proliferate in grocery store coolers, several other states and the federal government are also studying the issue.
Sigrist said she supports the idea of clear, unambiguous labeling. But she doesn’t like the idea of seeing Vermont pass a bill that could cause national producers to stop shipping their products to Vermont rather than change their labels. That’s what the Maryland spice company McCormick & Co. Inc. did after the GMO bill went into effect in 2016, she said.
“We understand where you are coming from, but we have significant concern that this bill as it stands would prohibit any of the products to be sold within Vermont,” she said. Sigrist said one of her association members sold 12,000 cans or cartons of soy or coconut beverage over the last three months.
“To pull products off the shelf at that rate, I’m sure consumers would be rather frustrated,” she said.
The introduction of Vermont’s milk labeling bill was prompted by a request from a St. Albans-area dairy farmer, said Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee and is a lead sponsor. Partridge said she wants to see products labeled properly so that consumers know that the alternatives don’t necessarily have the same nutritional value as cow’s milk.
Also, “dairy farmers are really struggling,” she said. “Every day you hear coffee is bad for you, coffee is good for you; butter is bad for you, butter is good for you … people have heard these things over the years and potentially moved away from dairy.”
Partridge said after the hearing on Tuesday that the committee might end up with a resolution, not a mandate, regarding labeling. She doesn’t want to see companies bypassing Vermont altogether with their beverage shipments.
“Some of the issues that Erin Sigrist brought up are very valid,” she said. “Trust me, I’d rather the federal government dealt with this, but sometimes when states start moving on it, it brings up enough conversation that people are informed and in fact things can change just by virtue of the fact it was brought up.”
Vermont law describes milk as “the lacteal secretion” obtained from milking cows. Milk from other animals including deer, elk, buffalo, goats and sheep fits the definition as long as it has been tested for antibiotics.
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture has provided comments on the matter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Kristin Haas, the state veterinarian, who also testified Tuesday. She said she considered beverages such as almond milk to be mislabeled.
“This is a discussion that has been going on at the federal level for quite some time,” Haas said. ”The FDA should have dealt with this a long, long time ago.”
To Haas and others in the committee room, the issue of milk labeling is strictly about correcting a factual inaccuracy.
“The bill doesn’t restrict the sale of anything; it just restricts the mislabeling of a product,” said Rep. John Bartholomew, D-Hartland, and a retired veterinarian. “There are already statutes on the books saying you should label things accurately, and they are not doing that.”
