Dairy UK had argued that it was unlawful to use “milk” in a trademark relating to “products that are not mammary secretions”.
I think consumers need to argue that all milk should be accurately labelled as "mammary secretions"
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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Feeling a bit insecure are you, dairy industry?
They see younger generations using less milk and this is their tantrum.
Meat industry does this too, but aren't as successful most of the time.
They see younger generations moving away from dairy, and claim it's because non-dairy stole the words.
When in my case at least, it only took a week milk-free to realise that having mild discomfort in your stomach all the time isn't normal.
And that drinking MOMA instead left me feeling lighter and happier.
I switched to oat milk simply because it lasts longer in the fridge. Cow's milk is not designed for any kind of shelf life at all.
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Milk of Magnesia has been getting away with it for decades.
And coconut milk. We now have to call that "non-mammary coconut secretion"?
Hand cream. Shea butter.
Milk of the poppy is ancient as fuck no?
I thought George RR Martin invented the phrase "milk of the poppy" to describe apine/opium in his ASOIAF series. Never crossed my mind that he might have lifted it from a history textbook.
I mean you might be right. However there exists a Ukrainian Christmas dessert called poppy milk that's just poppy seeds and water.
So I'm gonna give myself this one on a technicality haha
I find this whole "it's not milk if it's not dairy" argument really hard to take in good faith.
I'm not an expert at all, but when I've heard people talk about these kind of decisions, it sounds like it's normally meant to come down to consumer benefits.
Who's gaining here (aside from dairy lobbies)? I don't think there's any reasonable argument that UK citizens are confused by the term "oat milk", and buying it because they were tricked into thinking it was a dairy product.
I know a person who thought that the "plant milks" are flavours of regular milk until it was explained to them. Like chocolate milk.
All people are at least a little stupid. We're all stupid in our own way. Something that seems obvious to you and I may seem mind-boggling to someone else.
Would have been hilarious if big dairy brought them into the trial as an "expert witness".
"Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen, I am a real life strawman."
Yeah there are idiots, but what's the harm? They may be shocked to find there's 0 dairy, but how does that impact them? The nutrition info is on the label, as is the ingredients.
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Tbf especially with "almond milk" I could 100% see that. Honestly it's more logical than "they squeeze all the juice out of the almonds" (I have no idea the process for making almond milk lmao ykwim), someone seeing it and saying "Almonds huh? Crazy, what flavor will they think of next? I'd have chosen hazelnut" is really not that big of a jump.
Honestly I'm more surprised I didn't think that, but iirc I was informed about it through a vegan friend before I even saw it in the store.
Law has a concept of the average idiot (cannot remember the real term). When applying confusion as a risk. Honestly milk has been used so much in English. (Coconutsand other things) I think that would fail.
I ANAL though.
Its more likely that oat milk is intentionally selling as a mamory milk alternative. That was made as an argument. But it is clearly a biased response from the court.
In 2019, Oatly applied to trademark the phrase “Post Milk Generation” but this was rejected by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in January last year after ruling that its use of the term “milk” was “deceptive”.
But this trademark is clearly them establishing themselves as not-milk and plenty of vegan products term themselves like this ("No Steak Pie") without issue, it's only dairy products that this ridiculous standard applied to them. Guess I'll just continue to enjoy the two bottles of oat 'drink' I have in my fridge.
To be honest I do think calling it “milk” lets them inflate the price when it is essentially porridge water.
Most good oat milks will have stabilisers and vitamins (B12 especially) added to them vs if you just made some at home.
But this trademark is clearly them establishing themselves as not-milk and plenty of vegan products term themselves like this (“No Steak Pie”) without issue, it’s only dairy products that this ridiculous standard applied to them.
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter seem to have no bother. Perhaps it's just Big Milk at work.
I'd completely forgot about them tbh. You also see it a lot with cheese alternatives, even though they broadly fucking suck so I don't know why the cheese industry even bothers.
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RIP coconut milk.
Funny that before oats and soy started gaining in popularity they had no problems with coconut milk.
And milk of magnesia!
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some places called nut-based milk "mylk" to avoid this legal complication.
they could probably start doing that.
It’s not MILK (milk), it’s MlLK™ (mllk)!
Kidding aside, dairy companies are embarrassing themselves. Everyone I've ever met just calls it oat/soy/almond/whatever milk anyway, regardless what's written on the package, even if they don't drink it.
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This is karma for saying it works in tea.
The barista grade stuff works pretty well in builders tea, honestly.
You just have to get in the habit of shaking the carton.
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oaty tea eh? sounds a bit over the top to me.
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This is why I think the soy milk brand Silk is a brilliant product name.
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That ship has sailed, Milk boys. Consumers call it oat milk and that’s not changing.
also, unrelated, there is no such thing as boneless wings, no matter what the ohio supreme court says
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I love me some porridge water. Especially a porridge water latte.
You know what, I have zero problem calling it that, own it oatly! :D
Porridge is different. It’s been cooked which crosslinks the starch molecules. Oat milk isn’t porridge water… it’s different down at the molecular level. Believe me, I made this mistake when ‘cooking’ up a batch, sorry, that should have been ‘cocking’
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And what about the word “milking”? Is it legal to use when you are not talking about mammaries?
I love porridge water.
I don't like oat milk but it's more milk-like than skimmed UHT (bleurgh..). But I guess the line had to get drawn somewhere..
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“thin gruel” just doesn’t have the right ring to it
But it gives you an excuse to say “please, sir, may I have some more”.
It just needs a bit of snazzy marketing.
Just call it Ultragruel or Oatfuel and write "PROTEIN" on it in big letters.
Actually, now I think about it, that only covers one section of the market.
You should also release exactly the same product with with different packaging a few times:
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One with an off-brand Mr T character mascot, called "I Pity The Gruel".
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One called "Bilk : Better than Milk".
That's a few shelves of supermarkets covered with selling the same thing. I'm sure you can cover some more with a few like "Barista Supreme: Oat-based Cream", "Oat Water", "Oat Juice" and simply "Oat-based Drink". Maybe even "Oat Blood", for Goths and "My dad was a gruelmaker" for Keir Starmer fans.
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I looked into the high price of plant milks. It’s essentially because the industry is new and still investing in R&D and new factories. The dairy industry has very little innovation now, just court cases.
Don't forget the dairy industry takes lots of health subsidies in many countries too.
Nothing like a nice glass of oat juice
Taco bell calls its beef-like offering "beefy", like a "beefy 5 layer burrito".
I'd have some Oat Milky.
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