HARRISBURG — A Maryland-based dairy farmer looking to expand into Pennsylvania is suing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in federal court, saying the agency is violating his First Amendment rights by forcing him to lie to customers by labeling his products as “imitation skim milk” or “imitation milk.”
The Institute for Justice is filing the lawsuit along with Randy Sowers and his wife Karen, co-owners of South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, Maryland.
According to a press release announcing the lawsuit, the FDA has decided that skim milk may only be called “skim milk” if farmers add synthetic vitamins to the product.
“If farmers like Randy Sowers…want to sell pasteurized, all-natural skim milk without added chemicals, the federal government forces them to lie by labeling it as ‘imitation skim milk’ or ‘imitation milk product,'” the Institute for Justice said in its press release.
“The FDA is creating confusion where there was none whatsoever,” an Institute for Justice attorney said in the release. “People know what ‘skim milk’ means, but they have no idea what ‘imitation milk product’ means.
“Pure, all-natural skim milk is not an ‘imitation’ of anything.”
According to the Institute for Justice, the Sowers family contacted the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture while planning its expansion to the commonwealth to inquire about whether South Mountain Creamery could sell skim milk without the added synthetic vitamins. State officials had no objection, the Institute says, but because Sowers wanted to sell in multiple states, he must follow federal regulations.
“I just want to sell the purest, most-natural skim milk possible without being forced to confuse my customers,” Sowers said in the Institute for Justice press release.
The FDA requires the addition of synthetic vitamins A and D to skim milk, because farmers remove the fat from whole milk to create it. The synthetic vitamins required by the FDA are intended to replace the vitamins lost in the process.
But farmers like Sowers argue that without the fat, the synthetic vitamins added to skim milk break down before the skim milk reaches customers.
“In other words,” the Institute for Justice said in its lawsuit, “the FDA manages to confuse American milk drinkers without providing any health benefits.”
