Statement from Vegan Society CEO, Libby Peppiatt, who says powerful dairy lobby is “closing ranks”:
“The UK Supreme Court ruling that Oatly can no longer trademark or use the slogan, ‘Post-Milk Generation’, has generated a lot of headlines but it isn’t going to make much difference to the huge number of people who drink plant milk.
As Oatly says, this ruling is anti-competitive and solely benefits ‘Big Dairy’ – the people asking a question to which nobody else needed an answer.
It doesn’t make a real difference to consumers, though, because using the term ‘milk’ in the marketing of plant-based products was banned by the European Court of Justice as long ago as 2017 and that ruling stayed in force in the UK post-Brexit.
Dairy UK, the trade body that represents the interests of an industry that is responsible for the unnecessary use of millions of farmed animals, went down this legal route because they know that consumer behaviour is changing.
Recent Vegan Society research, conducted as part of our Play Fair With Plant Milk campaign, showed that one-third (33 percent) of people in the UK say they drink plant-based milk regularly (either every day or a few times a week) – and the global oat milk market is predicted to have a growth rate (CAGR) of almost 14 percent per year over the next five years.
These are significant figures and they paint part of a bigger picture that shows why the powerful and influential dairy, meat and fish lobbies are running scared and turning to expensive lawyers for help: around two million people in Great Britain are now following a vegan or plant-based lifestyle.
Milk? Drink? Juice? What’s in a name? People know exactly what they’re buying.
This pointless ruling stifles innovation and progress in attaining sustainability targets, as well as having serious implications for animal welfare.
It is, of course, all part of the same ridiculous debate that’s currently going on in the European Parliament about banning ‘meaty’ names for vegan burgers and veggie sausages.
There is no evidence to suggest that people do not know the difference between a sausage that is made of pig flesh or one that is made from mushroom, or indeed a carton of plant-based milk and milk that is taken from cows.
This is just the rich and powerful animal agriculture lobbies closing ranks in an attempt to increase their profits, which come at an enormous cost to animals, to public health and to the environment.”
