The National Pork Producers Council wants to make sure the public knows about misleading labels on plant-based imitation meat products.
On Jan. 27, the NPPC began running digital ads in the Des Moines International Airport with a picture of sizzling bacon with the words “Pork: You can’t make it from plants unless you feed them to a pig first” underneath.
Another version includes the same picture with text reading “Pork: It comes from a pig, not Silicon Valley.”
“What’s impossible is to make pork from plants. This is a brazen attempt to circumvent decades of food labelling law and centuries of precedence. Any adjective placed in front of the word pork can only refine it, not redefine it. It’s not pork. It’s not pork sausage. It can’t be labelled as such,” Dr. Dan Kovich, director of science and technology for the National Pork Producers Council, said earlier this month.
The NPPC said it welcomes competition and consumer choice but wants to do so on a level playing field. The organization says they want the plant-based meat to face the same regulatory requirements as traditional livestock agriculture. This includes truthful labeling.
The organization is addressing issues surrounding plant-based and cell-cultured meat: the understanding of the products and how they are produced as well as ensuring the products are labeled in a way that makes it clear how it was produced and what it contains.