What does the plant-based marketing crackdown mean? Summary
- Zurich regulators ban Alpro slogan for using stylised milk term
- Swiss court rulings confirm vegan drinks cannot reference milk creatively
- Decision ends attempts to bypass dairy naming bans with design tricks
- Oatly recently lost UK trademark case over Post Milk Generation slogan
- EU restrictions tighten meat-free naming rules limiting future plant-based marketing
Dairy juggernaut Danone, and its plant-based division Alpro, have come under fire for the marketing of their oat drink product in Switzerland.
Zurich’s food labelling regulator has ruled that vegan products cannot use the term ‘milk’ on their packaging. And that includes when brands use the term to describe not just what a vegan product is, but also to describe what it’s not.
‘This is not m*lk’ banned from Alpro packaging
The product in question is Danone’s Alpro oat drink. Although the company has been careful not to call its offering ‘oat milk’ on pack – opting for ‘oat drink’ on the back of the carton instead – it hasn’t shunned the term ‘milk’ altogether.
In bold lettering front-of-pack, Danone markets its product with the slogan: ‘SHHH...THIS IS NOT M*LK’. The ‘i’ in milk has been replaced by a droplet symbol.
Danone’s battle to retain its slogan has been going on for some time. Back in 2022, regulators in Zurich ruled the labelling unlawful. The company challenged the decision, with the Zurich court rejecting its appeal in 2024. Now, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court has done the same.
The court argues that saying “this is not milk”, or even spelling “milk” in a stylised way, doesn’t change the facts: the term “milk” still appears on-pack.
The end of creative marketing in plant-based?
The move could signal a slowing of creative marketing in plant-based. The Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s decision implies that plant-based brands cannot get around dairy name bans by using clever wording or design tricks.
And that’s not unique to Switzerland. Just last month, oat drink major Oatly lost a trade mark case in the UK over its “Post Milk Generation” slogan. In this instance, the case was brought against the brand by industry body Dairy UK.
Having been forced to retire the slogan, Oatly responded by giving out “contraband” merchandise bearing its “Post Milk Generation” banner – a tongue-in-cheek response to the Supreme Court ruling.
The decisions throw the marketing of plant-based products, both in alt dairy and meat, into the spotlight. The European Union recently banned specific denominations for meat-free products, including chicken, beef, steak and pork.
Just how makers of plant-based alternatives will now market their products remains to be seen, but it’s becoming clear that “This is not chicken” or “Not steak” marketing workarounds are unlikely to be tolerated.
