'Post-Milk Generation’ and Other Things Big Dairy Doesn’t Want You to Say: The Oatly Case

In this episode of The Disclosure Podcast, I break down the UK Supreme Court ruling that prevents Oatly from using the slogan “post-milk generation” on its packaging, and explore why this case is nothing to do with consumer confusion and everything to do with protecting the dairy industry. I discuss the inconsistencies and absurdities in current labelling laws, what this reveals about industry influence and lobbying, and why situations like this should encourage us to question broader claims made about dairy, from health and sustainability to ethics.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome to the Disclosure Podcast. If you enjoy this episode and the work that I'm doing here, then please consider checking out my Substack where I post regular articles. You can also support my work by becoming a paid member of my Substack, through which you will also gain access to weekly articles or by making a donation through my website. For those of you who do support my work, thank you so much. I am incredibly grateful and appreciate it very much. Links for everything can be found in this episode's show notes. Leaving a review for this podcast is also really helpful and encourages more people to listen to it. I hope you find this episode interesting and informative, and thank you for listening. So recently I uploaded a Substack where I was talking about this ruling in the UK by the Supreme Court regarding Oatley's uh attempts to trademark the slogan post milk generation. And I'll put the link for the Substack in the show notes that you can read it if you'd be interested in doing so. But I also wanted to expand a little bit about a little bit on this because I think this story, and I'll and I'll recap it in just a moment for those of you who haven't come across it yet. I think this story is is really symbolic in terms of the direction of censorship around uh plant-based terminology and what words can be used. But I also think it's quite symbolic of these kind of cynical tactics by the by the animal product industries to sort of obfuscate the truth around what their intentions are and also to try and obviously it's to try and turn people away from purchasing these products or maybe to create sort of financial issues for some plant-based companies, because actually one of the knock-on effects of this ruling is that um packaging for Oli is no longer valid. Now, I don't know if they're given a grace period to phase it out. Presumably they are, I don't know for certain though, so you'd have to double check that. But it means that going forward they'd they have to change their packaging, and there may well be some financial concerns around that. I'm not necessarily sure, but I think that it is quite symbolic of just this attempt from the industry to try and do anything they possibly can, even things that are ridiculous and seem, I mean, let's be honest, pathetic. They will do them because this protectionist mentality is the most important thing. And I actually think this story is kind of bad PR for them, but I guess they've weighed up the consequences of that and have still viewed it as um positive for their industry, the dairy industry, that is. So let me just give you a little brief overview. Oatly back in 2021 made a trademark application for the phrase post milk generation. For those of you who are familiar with with Oatley's branding and some of their merchandise and some of their products, you probably have seen this is kind of the slogan for Oatley. I think they've always used it, at least they've used it for most of the time that they've been popular and before then as well. So, anyway, they tried to trademark that in the UK. And what happened is Dairy UK, which is sort of a dairy lobby group, if um, you know, they work on behalf of the dairy industry in the UK, they challenged that application because it uses the word milk. Now, in the UK, it's already illegal for plant-based companies to use the word milk on their packaging. So oatly or any plant-based company couldn't say oat milk or soya milk or almond milk. They can't use that uh that terminology specifically. So this ruling wasn't about banning them from calling their products oat milk because they already call it oat drink and have done for a while now. This was specifically about them being able to use this phrase on their products. The Supreme Court essentially said that Oatly can still use the phrase on merchandise, they can still use it on t-shirts, for example, but they can't use it on the packaging of their oat milk or oat drink as legally it should be uh referred to. So that means they can't use the phrase post-milk generation, and the reason why is because the word milk can't be used on plant-based products. But already you see what is probably one of the most glaring um absurdities about this particular case, which is that the phrase post-milk generation is referring to cow's milk. It's not saying that the product is oat milk. It's a phrase that says by consuming this oat drink, you are a part of a post-milk generation. So you are a part of a generation that is moving beyond milk, past milk, post-milk. It is referring to milk as cow's milk. And that's why this thing is this this ruling to me just seems absolutely bonkers. Because it's not making uh it's not a description of the product in question. It's not saying that the product is oat milk. It's saying that by consuming this product, you are a part of a post-cow's milk generation. And it seems kind of absurd because to run with the logic of why Dairy UK ran with this and why the Supreme Court has presumably ruled in this way, they've done so because of the law that says that milk can't be used to describe oat milk. So they've taken that and they've applied it to this situation. But the reason why that law exists is not to sort of say, well, it clearly is to say that the word milk can't be associated with plant-based milks. But the point of that law was to say you can't call the product milk because it's made from plants. But this ruling isn't part of that. This ruling is saying you can't even use the word. You can't even, you can't even say milk on packaging, which I suppose is quite scary because it then opens up the door to sort of what does that mean, for example, if Oatley or any plant-based company wanted to make a direct comparison? So they might want to say soya milk contains this much protein compared to cow's milk to show how it has comparable levels of protein. Or or for, you know, when soy milk is fortified, it has comparable levels of calcium to cow's milk. Can you still make those comparisons? Could you? I mean, I don't know if they do, but but could you do that theoretically? Could you say that by purchasing this soy milk, your carbon emissions are this versus what they would have been if you'd purchased cow's milk? Because now you're saying milk on the packaging. Now you're using a word which you can't even use as a slogan, a slogan that is referring to cow's milk as cow's milk, but doing so in a way that is, I suppose, anti-cow's milk. And that's kind of the issue that Dairy UK has, obviously. This slogan is anti-cow's milk. It's not that they truly or sincerely believe that people are going to buy oatly because it has the phrase post milk generation on it, and so they're going to go, oh, the word milk is on the side of the packaging. This must be cow's milk. Because on the front of the packaging, it clearly says oat drink. So, I mean, it it it's it's absurd and patronizing enough when the industry claims that the reason they don't want the word milk to be used in the context of oat milk is because they're afraid of consumer confusion. That's insulting enough to consumers. The idea that we don't understand that oat milk means a product made from oats. I mean, the fact that that's what they they run with as their um as their argument for why they want to suppress this terminology is is insulting, it's baffling, it's belittling, and anyone, vegan or not, should feel, you know, like their intelligence is being questioned by the dairy industry when they claim that the reason why we have to be protected is because we're too ignorant or uneducated to understand that oat milk is milk made from oats and isn't cow's milk just because it has the word milk in it. That's bad enough. But now we're supposed to believe that as consumers, we're so uneducated that even when the product says oat drink, just the fact that there's a slogan on the side which says post milk generation, that will be enough because we'll read that and we'll go, milk, ooh, cow's milk. I better buy this because I want cow's milk. Even though the brand is called Oatly, everyone knows what Oatly is by now, and it says oat drink on the packaging as well. You just have to think about how little the industry thinks of us as consumers. And one point I made in the Substack, which is which is something I'd like to reiterate in in this podcast episode, because I think this is a really important point, is everyone, vegan or not, knows that when the dairy industry says the reason why we want to challenge this trademark application is because we care about consumer confusion, we all know that's not the reason. We all know that's not the reason why. Vegan or not, we know that they're lying. And we know that the reason that they're lying is because on some level, we you know, they think as an industry that these rulings will protect them more, maybe make a difference when it comes to sales, maybe just sort of protect the image of the dairy industry by not having these words used for other products. Essentially, we know, vegan or not, that the reason why they want these rulings is because they think it's positive for them. Not nothing to do with us. It's not because they genuinely believe that people are mistakenly buying soya milk or oat milk. But if we recognize that they will lie about something so obvious and transparent, something so obvious that everyone could see it for what it is. If we recognize that they'll lie about something as trivial as the slogan post milk generation being used on the packaging for Oatley products, if we know that they will lie about their intentions around that, what else are they lying about? Because realistically, this ruling won't make any difference to their industry, but they've still viewed it as being financially important enough for them to challenge the trademark application, and important enough from an image protection perspective for them to challenge this trademark application. So they still view this as being something important enough to challenge using money, finances, resources, time, and in doing so, realistically, I think it harms their image more than it helps their image, because I think most people would look at this and just be like, this is ridiculous. I, you know, and I looked at some Reddit threads, I looked at some conversation online from non-vegans, and most people were in agreement that this is this is ridiculous. I mean, who cares? Like this is so trivial, so silly that that it's an overreach, really. That seemed to be the common sort of belief. And obviously you had people saying, oh good, yeah, down with Oatley, but those were people who don't buy Oatly. You know, again, these were people who had a sort of vendetta against veganism or against plant-based products, not people who were relieved that they will now finally stop mistakenly buying Oatley every time they want to buy cow's milk. So anyone who was celebrating was doing so because they have a bias against veganism. They want these companies to fail, not because they were being tricked, let's say, by Oatley's branding. And that's the point, isn't it? You know, people who are in favor of this ruling are in favor of it because they want these plant-based companies to fail. That's the motivation. There is no other motivation there. But if the dairy industry will lie about their motivation to us as consumers, even when it's so obvious and transparent, what else are they lying about? Could it be that they're lying about the sustainability claims around dairy? You know, that they're making it sound like it's really sustainable when it's not? Could it be that they're lying about the health claims of drinking cow's milk or consuming dairy products? Could it be that they're misleading and lying to us about the ethics of their industry, about the humane treatment of cows within the industry, about how lovingly they treat the newborn calves that they separate from their mothers? Could it be that if they are willing to so obviously lie to us about something that realistically will make no difference to their industry, that they might also be lying to us about issues that would meaningfully make a significant difference to their industry? Because if the conversation was all around the fact that you don't need dairy products for calcium, and actually dairy products can be harmful for your health. And on top of that, dairy farming isn't sustainable. Dairy farming is actually unsustainable, and soy milk and oat milk and these milks are far more sustainable and when fortified, can provide you with the same essential nutrients that we get from cow's milk. And if most importantly of all, the conversation around dairy was always about how unethical it is, rather than it being this situation where we as vegans are trying to compel people to see the immorality of the industry, but everyone is bombarded by imagery of dairy farmers loving their cows because they're out in fields and they treat them like family members. If we were able to get through this propaganda and the messaging about the welfare of these animals was the truth, which is that these animals are abused, these are industries of cruelty, and these industries are are unethical at their core, those kinds of messages would really significantly impact the dairy industry. So if they'll lie about something trivial, what about issues that really matter? Why would we trust them about those? Well, of course we know that we shouldn't. But to get back to the sort of the specifics of the trademark application, one thing that I think is also really absurd again is coconut milk. Now, you might have noticed, and maybe you have, maybe you haven't, that when I've been listing the milks or the plant milks that you can't call plant milk, I've not mentioned coconut milk. And there's a reason for that, which is that you can legally call coconut milk coconut milk. Now, the reason for that, because yeah, I mean, gosh, it's just it's there's so many parts of this, so many threads to this that you just go, oh surely someone needs to just look at this more objectively and realize that these are all just totally absurd rulings. But the reason why coconut milk is allowed under UK law to be called coconut milk is because the law that prohibits it from being that prohibits milk being used for other types of plant milks apparently doesn't apply to coconut milk because there's an exception. And the exception in the law is that the law shall not apply to the designation of products, the exact nature of which is clear from traditional usage. So essentially, we can call coconut milk milk because there's a long tradition of us doing so. So then the question becomes if there is this long tradition of us calling coconut milk milk, and at no point in that long tradition has there ever been confusion. Why would there be confusion now about oat milk and soy milk and almond milk and rice milk and whatever pea milk or whatever other milk we can't call milk for legal reasons? Surely the fact that we've had coconut milk for a long time, and we all understand what it is, and we all understand that coconut milk is not cow's milk, is proof that prohibiting companies from using the word milk to describe plant milks is completely nonsensical. I mean, coconut milk shouldn't be the exception, it should be the proof that the law itself shouldn't exist. How is it possible that the people who created this law can correctly identify that we've had coconut milk as an ingredient for a long, long time and it's not been a problem at any point during that time? How can they come to the conclusion that this evidence of coconut milk means that coconut milk should be an exception, not that this evidence of coconut milk should mean that the law shouldn't exist? Surely that's all you need. You go, are there any precedents? Do we have any historical examples that we can look to to see how we should rule on whether this law should exist or not? Coconut milk. And what did we find out with coconut milk? We found out that people knew what it was and used it appropriately and didn't buy it thinking that it was cow's milk. Ah, okay. So how should that determine how we rule on whether or not other milks should be allowed to be called milk? And for some reason, they decided that the law should exist, but to get around the coconut milk problem will just create an exception. Because the truth is, if you stopped calling coconut milk milk, that would have caused all the confusion. Imagine if coconut milk was no longer available in supermarkets. You couldn't buy tins of coconut milk. Of course, that would cause lots of confusion because people are so used to buying coconut milk for cooking. And this is the thing, you know, studies show that censoring these terms increases consumer confusion. It doesn't decrease it, it increases it. And yet the industry and these lobbyist groups that work for the industry and politicians who are sympathetic to the industry, either through an ideological sympathy or potentially a sympathy that has been fostered through financial contributions to their campaigns and to their re-elections, whatever the reason may be, these industries with their lobbyists and the sympathetic politicians that represent them in our parliaments keep trying to enforce these rules that suppress language that can be used on packaging to help inform consumers around the products that they're buying. I've probably got myself a little bit wound up, a little bit frustrated, and maybe you can tell from the way that I've been speaking that this is something that that really annoys me. But it also annoys me, I think, because it's so petty. I think that's one of the reasons why it frustrates me. I mean, I'm glad that I that I don't believe it that this is meaningful or significant. I don't think that people have stopped buying soya milk and oat milk because they're called soya drink and oat drink. I don't think these rulings really make a difference when it comes to milk. I don't think people are getting put off from buying oat drink or soya drink because it says drink rather than milk. I do think this might be more of a problem when it comes to terminology around burgers or sausages, for example. Because I think the phrasing disc is a little bit more unappetizing because a disc is something we normally associate with being inanimate, you know, whether it's a CD, whether it's like a frisbee disc, is kind of something that we don't associate with being food. Discus, you know, the uh Olympic sport. So I do think that there's potentially more of a problem around the suppression of terminology associated to meat terms. But I still don't think it's enough to really shift anyone away from these products. I mean, maybe some people, but but probably not really many people. And I especially don't think that it's a big issue when it comes to dairy alternatives, especially when it comes to to milk. And so my frustration from this probably stems more from just how pathetic I find this. I just how weak I find this. I mean, I find it quite comical, and actually in the substat that I wrote, I I try to bring humour to this by sort of pointing out the absurdity of it. Because I do think that when you think this through, there are so many reasons to sort of have a wry smile and and to even laugh at the absurdity of it. Obviously, in order to do so, you have to remove all of the those issues with the dairy industry, the ethical issues of the dairy industry, and just view this as being merely a logical exercise around labeling on food products. But if you do so, I think we can see that there is there is such intense absurdity around these rulings and around these pursuits from the industry that you can't help but sometimes just shake your head in disbelief. And whether you laugh, cry, I'm I don't really know what the most appropriate response is, but it's just such a crazy thing that we are living in a time where where these laws are being introduced over something so ridiculous, right? Something that consumers are not asking for. And it reveals to me, I think, quite clearly the corruption that exists between the private sector and the public sector. You know, this to me is a perfect public-facing example of the collusion that goes on between very powerful industries and our lawmakers. And this is where sort of the humor of it sort of starts to dissipate, even when we talk about even when we're just talking about it more from a food perspective rather than, you know, the ethics of the dairy industry. Because it reveals to you how well protected these very powerful industries are and how effective their lobbyists are when it comes to creating law changes that they perceive benefit them. And if these things are happening very much front and center, these are the very much obvious things. It does make you question what's happening more behind closed doors when it comes to things that are less maybe sensational, less sort of attention grabbing, media headline grabbing, and are just more around policies that are that are a little bit more underneath the surface around environmental enforcements, around oversights and accountability, around auditing on farms, around the power of the food standards agency, the FSA, you know, around these sort of government entities that are really meant to be there to hold these industries to account, but often work hand in hand with them. I mean, DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is supposed to exist as a government body that is being that is being run in a way that is for the people. But really, when we think about DEFRA, we think about a government agency that's working with the interests of the agricultural sector. And of course, part of the government's responsibility is to work with farmers and food producers, but not at the detriment to people, not at the detriment to the electorate, to the public, the people who the government are supposed to represent. But I think we all know that there are meetings that take place between farming lobby groups, whether that's the National Farmers Union, whether it's Dairy UK, and government officials. And we aren't brought to those tables. Public interests aren't brought front and center to these conversations. The politician is the one who's supposed to represent us within these meetings, but then they're not doing so. So we don't actually have the representation that we need within these meetings to make sure that things are happening that are actually genuinely in our best interests. And I'm not saying our best interests in terms of vegan best interests. I'm not applying that kind of that lens to it, that bias to it. I mean just the interests of the public. And suppressing food labeling and creating barriers for businesses to succeed, or at least what the dairy industry perceives as being barriers to businesses succeeding, is an affront to what we as consumers deserve, which is a competitive market. Space. And if the idea is that these industries can try and suppress these other companies, can suppress other food sectors, and they're able to work with our government agencies in doing so, that to me is a really strong red flag because it makes me think, well, what else is happening? Things that are not quite as attention grabbing. And now, look, the Supreme Court has ruled this, but they are having to rule this based on laws that have been introduced previously. So they have to go off of what the law says. Maybe the law is worded and written in such a way as the conclusion they've drawn makes sense according to the law. It's not necessarily the Supreme Court's job to reevaluate the law itself. It's more to see if this application challenge is applicable under the law that they're looking at. I think it's absurd, but the absurdity began when the law was introduced. And I think that what we're seeing now with this trademark application ruling, the post-moke generation ruling, is just the full realization of how absurd this is. Because we are at this point where Oatley can't use the trademark or haven't successfully been able to trademark post-moke generation and are now legally prohibited from using that slogan on their food and drinks beverages. We have reached that point because we have created an absurd law that should have never been created in the first place. And the dairy industry is going to keep using this law and keep trying to introduce other laws to suppress the plant-based food space and to suppress veganism as an ideology, of course. They're going to keep doing this, and we're being failed by our legislators because they are the ones that are not providing the proper accountability to these industries and sadly are working hand in hand with them more often than they should. Now, look, again, I don't want to portray everything as being too doom and gloom because there are positive steps happening from a legal perspective around certain welfare changes. And I do think that the UK is starting to move in a positive direction when it comes to implementing new welfare laws. So I don't want to disregard this and say that the government isn't doing anything that's positive and, you know, uh animal welfare is going backwards and blah, blah, blah. That's not what I'm saying. There are positive changes happening, which will hopefully be happening more and more. But ultimately, there is still this very concerning issue, which is that when it comes to those meetings, when it comes to those discussions, when it comes to DEFRA, when it comes to government bodies, the interests of the industry still seem to be the ones that are most apparent when it comes to certain rulings. And I think that this one is a clear example of that. Anyway, those are my thoughts, my musings. Um, I wanted to expand a little bit on it. I enjoyed writing the Substack, and like I said, the Substack is probably a little bit lighter in tone than maybe this podcast, but I did want to sort of maybe expand on it a little bit because it is something that I feel quite passionate about. Again, not passionate because I think that the case itself will make any difference, because I really don't think that it will, but because I think it represents something bigger. And I think there is an important message in there for non-vegans, which is if the industry will lie to you about this and not only lie to you, but they will use you in this discussion because they're saying the reason we're doing this is because of you, the uneducated, ignorant non-vegan who is too stupid to know that oat milk is made from oats, and not only that, you're too stupid to know that oat drink with the slogan post milk generation on the packaging is not cow's milk. The fact that they will use non-vegans and insult them in this way, because they'd rather perpetuate a lie about their intentions than be honest, should raise red flags and should ring alarm bells when it comes to what else are they lying about. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate it as always, and I look forward to speaking to all of you in the next podcast episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the disclosure podcast on whichever platform you listen to it, as doing so means that you can always stay up to date with new episodes. Leaving a review and sharing the podcast is also really helpful. And if you'd like to support the podcast and my work more generally, you can either make a donation through the link in the show notes or sign up to my Substack where I post weekly and share my thoughts and feelings about the experience of living vegan. In the show notes, you can also find links to purchase my books. Thank you again for listening.