I’ll probably stick to asking for oat milk instead of “porridge water” or whatever the new mandated name will be. To be honest I do think calling it “milk” lets them inflate the price when it is essentially porridge water.
RIP coconut milk.
Funny that before oats and soy started gaining in popularity they had no problems with coconut milk.
I like coconut milk as although milk, it makes for great mixers!
And milk of magnesia!
Yeah. And it is clear the court is not being unbiased. Given your comment.
It seems likely that parliment could be convinced to rule on this with enough negativity. No legal restrictions exist on the name. The dairy industry has no trademark or claim of unique use or confusion.
Parliment has the right to rule against this by act. if they agree. IE basically passing a law restricting courts from bias against long used language terminology.
Honestly it would require folks to write to MPs pointing out the stupidity ans bias. But enough may be annoyed by this that such a movement can be formed.
They didn’t? Or it just wasn’t as common to voice it?
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.
Easy enough, go with “oat mealk”
Gosh that’s good
Call it MlLK where you replace the capital i with a lowercase L
I MADE THIS FOR YOU!
Oat klim.
And what about the word “milking”? Is it legal to use when you are not talking about mammaries?
I love porridge water.
Yoohoo is chocolate “drink” not “milk” either, this tracks.
Taco bell calls its beef-like offering “beefy”, like a “beefy 5 layer burrito”.
I’d have some Oat Milky.
The trade mark isn’t worded like they’re saying they’re milk.
The term “post milk” makes me think “better than milk” which is accurate.
Courts don’t define words, people and dictionaries do. And this was in the telegraph which means it BS anyway. Ignore and don’t click
Laws and consumer protection agencies can and do define words in the context of consumer goods.
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”
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.
Milk of Magnesia has been getting away with it for decades.
And coconut milk. We now have to call that “non-mammary coconut secretion”?
Nut secretions
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.
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.
Now I want to make an oil-based spread and call it “The Product In This Container Is Absolutely Not Butter” and see how it sells.
Sound like the Aldi brand.
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.
