Trade Talk

Whether regulations should be amended to allow you to call soya drink 'soya milk' on food labels has reached the European agenda once again. The European dairy industry says that the word 'milk' shouldn't be permitted for vegetable 'milks'.

I have no vested interests in soya, I'm using this to illustrate a principle. Where consumers already understand the meaning of a term, then it should be used on labels. No matter what planet you live on, you could not confuse soya with cow mammary milk. Try comparing the two in coffee. Coconut and almond milks are allowed, so why shouldn't soya?

When the current European Commission legislation on protected names in the dairy sector was drawn up in the late 1980s, Member States were invited to submit names of foods in use that should continue to be allowed on the grounds that consumers were familiar with them and wouldn't be misled. UK examples included 'custard creams', 'cream crackers' and 'coconut milk'. Products that weren't around at the time did not get a look in, even though the rationale is the same.

Lists designed to distinguish between permitted and forbidden names or designations of foods provide opportunity for protectionism. There are already general rules to protect the consumer. In the interests of simplicity and common sense these should be sufficient.

Lobby groups aren't always consistent in their approach. There is pressure for simplification of legislation but when it comes to protecting their own interests, stakeholders often want explicit rules set out in tablets of stone. That usually means more rather than less and thus antithetic to deregulation they espouse in all other areas.

Taking the soya milk example, milk from other mammals is arguably a greater threat to cow than soya milk. But no-one could argue against calling milk from camels, 'milk'. In the Oxford English Dictionary the second definition of 'milk' is 'Milk like juice of plants eg coconut'. The verb, 'to milk', is defined as 'extract juice, venom etc. from (tree, snake etc.)'. There are also 'milk of magnesia'; 'milk of sulphur'; and 'milk of human kindness'. So 'milk' has many connotations beyond mammals.

It is immaterial whether it is called soya drink or soya milk because it is displayed alongside mammal mammary milk. And in the unlikely event that some is bought by mistake, the retailer would be happy to change it.

''Clare Cheney

Director General Provision Trade Federation

clare.cheney@provtrade.co.uk''