Saturday, October 30, 2021
Innovative Foods with Transparent Labels that Will Have the Next Pandemic for Breakfast
Danny Friedmann (Peking University), Innovative Foods with Transparent Labels that Will Have the Next Pandemic for Breakfast, Law and Economics of the Coronavirus Crisis (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor, eds., forthcoming):
Continued factory farming makes a new viral pandemic ineluctable. Plant-based and cell-cultured food (together “innovative food”) producers use animal-based food names to signal a similar function, use, and taste, but without the negative externalities of the animal-based foods in regard to health, sustainability and ethicality. In the US and EU, the market share of animal-based products is shrinking. The animal-based food producers in the US have insisted on “Truth in Labeling” measures to exclude innovative foods from using animal-based food names, even though empirical research demonstrates that it does not lead to consumer confusion. The European Parliament has approved Amendment 171 to Regulation (EU) No. 1308/2013 to extend the dairy ban, even though it conflicts with the policy goals in the Farm to Fork Strategy to transition to a system of health, sustainability, clear information, and the implied goal of ethicality.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2021/10/innovative-foods-with-transparent-labels-that-will-have-the-next-pandemic-for-breakfast.html