IDM ¦ Column
“Ceci n’est pas un fromage”:
protecting dairy terms means
protecting consumers
‘Amendment 171’ stands as guardian of consumers’ quality expectations
by ensuring clarity and fairness within the EU Single Market
Author: Alexander Anton, EDA Secretary General
‘Cheese’, ‘milk’, ‘butter’ or ‘yogurt’ — essential
products in our households. Delicious and nutritious,
they belong to our dairy industry, one of
the most important agricultural sectors and one
that represents a vital element in the diets not
only of Europeans, a key value creator for rural territories and
an ally of sustainable development, in line with the European
Green Deal objectives.
Whether it is Danish butter or Italian cheese, we know that
EU milk and dairy products have a well-recognized quality excellence
that comes from sophisticated, traditional, and distinctive
creation processes. The EU dairy value chain ensures the
highest food safety and excellence standards for our milk and
dairy products that are displayed on the supermarket shelves.
At this latest stage of the value chain, when consumers
pick up their products, it becomes crucial that information is
conveyed in the clearest way possible to assure that their daily
dietary choices are made accurately and in line with their needs
and preferences. Consumers need to be able to recognize at
first glance if the product they put into their shopping basket
is or is not a dairy product, so that their quality expectations
can be fully protected.
Milk and dairy products are unique and cannot be replaced
by the so-called “plant-based alternatives” — they are simply
different in terms of origin, ingredient composition and nutritional
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value. The same way they cannot be replaced, they
should not be imitated.
As our Codex Alimentarius based EU legislation stipulates,
‘milk’ is made by milking dairy animals. Dairy foods are natural
sources of high-quality proteins, as well as essential vitamins
such as B2, B12, and minerals including calcium, phosphorus,
and iodine. Uniquely in milk, these nutrients all interact together
to provide even greater nutritional and health benefits
through the milk matrix, which is not found in any other products
on the market. In comparison, even though plant-based
beverages intend to imitate milk composition, they cannot provide
the full nutritional benefits that come naturally from milk.
It is simply wrong to consider plant-based beverages as nutritionally
equivalent to milk. For instance, they do not naturally
contain calcium, it is added artificially. They tend to have
a lower protein content and more importantly a lower quality
of protein. Naturally occurring in milk, high quality protein
and calcium are needed in sufficient amounts for normal and
healthy growth, development, and maintenance of bones,
along with many other benefits. A wide range of studies shows
the health benefits of milk, while there is — to put it diplomatically
— currently little scientific evidence supporting the health
benefits of plant-based beverages.
Attempts by the plant-based sector to take advantage of
the highly reputed dairy industry, to hijack our dairy terms and
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