Do consumers really need a clearer distinction between plant-based milk alternatives and animal-based dairy products at the point of sale? The oat milk producer Oatly rejects such EU efforts as paternalism and wants to mobilise consumers accordingly with the „Are you stupid?“ initiative.
Specifically, it is about the Amendment 171, which the European Parliament voted in favour of on 23 October 2020. It refers to EU Regulation No. 1308/2013, which states that terms such as „milk“, „cheese“ and „yoghurt“ may only be used to describe products that originate from animals. In future, dairy products are to be differentiated from plant-based alternatives. In a current initiative, the Swedish company is now asking provocatively „Are you stupid?“ and calls, among other things, for participation in a Petition against the amendment on.
Founded in 1990, the Swedish company argues that the names of dairy products - such as milk and cheese - are already sufficiently protected by law are. The planned restrictive measures would have a significant impact on both marketing and packaging. On the one hand, there are fears that the Packaging of plant-based milk alternatives must be clearly differentiated from the packaging of dairy products in future. In addition, the current regulations allow plant-based products to be labelled as „no milk“ and „dairy-free“ and „yoghurt alternative“. This would no longer be possible in future.
Oatly campaign: „Are you stupid?“
The company is taking a clear stance here. A different declaration or even a necessary differentiation through a different packaging design is not necessary, as the consumer is well informed about the product. Sufficient expertise to recognise these differences. Various videos of the digital campaign „Are you stupid?“ are intended to substantiate this. They present the responses of participants in a study of twelve focus groups with people from 17 countries aged 21-64. They were able to clearly identify plant-based products and dairy products.
In addition, according to a survey conducted in collaboration with GfK, only five out of 100 participants bought a vegan product by mistake. Instead, the new regulation would make a direct comparison between plant-based products and dairy products more difficult, as comparative product information on the packaging would no longer be possible.
„The restrictions threatened by Amendment 171 will only make the switch to plant-based products more complicated. The amendment contradicts the mission of the farm-to-fork strategy to increase the consumption of plant-based products - in our opinion, this is absurd.“ Tobias Nordström, Head of Planning, Oatly
Source: Oatly
