Senior Counsel James Lawrence’ article, “Why Tofurky Has A Beef With Missouri's Meat Labeling Law” was featured in Law360 on October 12, 2018.

“I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs,” Missouri congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver told a U.S. Navy banquet in 1899. “[F]rothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” This is one of the sayings credited for making Missouri the “Show-Me” state.

Missouri recently became the first state in the union to enact a ban on labeling products as “meat” unless they are “derived from harvested product livestock or poultry.”[1] To some, this was the Missouri General Assembly taking up the “show-me” mantle. The Missouri Cattleman’s Association lauded the law as an important consumer protection measure. The Association said the statute would prevent “mislead[ing] consumers into thinking” plant-based or laboratory-grown food products “are actually meat produced by farm and ranch families.” Mike Deering, the Executive Vice President of the Association, told The New York Times the law is about “[m]aking sure that consumers kn[o]w what they [are] buying.” After all, “[y]ou cannot market a station wagon as a Porsche.” (Unless, of course, you are Porsche.)

To read the entire Law360 article, click here.