Florida law allows the sale of skim milk without vitamin A and D fortification but requires that it be sold under the name “imitation milk product.” Ochiltree Creamery, a business that views the addition of other than natural ingredients as contrary to its mission, was willing to put warnings on its all-natural skim milk alerting buyers to the absence of vitamin fortification, but resisted the law’s demand that it label the product something other than “skim milk.” The Eleventh Circuit ruled that the state had not met its burden under the First Amendment. [Eugene Volokh, Baylen Linnekin, Frank Garrison]
One Comment
A couple of things on this case:
The Florida regulation / prohibition on calling natural skim milk “skim milk,”is following a federal rule requiring the same thing. The feds, as well as Florida, requires that once the cream is skimmed from the milk, the dairy / creamery must add vitamin A back into the milk before labeling it and selling it as “skim milk.”
At the lower court and even before the Circuit Court Florida had argued that the skim milk without vitamin A being added back into the milk was not a “natural milk product.”
Cows everywhere moo’ed their displeasure at what was a udderly ridiculous law.