Florida Creamery Fights Gov-Mandated Mislabeling of Skim Milk

Florida-based Ocheesee Creamery is fighting a state
agricultural department rule that bars the business from accurately
labelling its skim milk as skim milk. Because creamery owner Mary
Lou Wesselhoeft does not inject vitamin A into the milk, the
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Serices (DACS) says
she can only label it “Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk
Vitamins Removed”. 

Ocheesee Creamery and the Institute for Justice (IJ)
are challenging this labeling requirement, which certainly doesn’t
make for spectacular marketing. But Wesselhoeft and IJ go one step
further and say that the label is actively misleading to consumers,
since her skim milk is not a “milk product” but whole, natural milk
with the cream skimmed off. This is, by definition, how skim milk
is made.

“It is unconstitutional for government to force businesses to
mislead their customers,” states IJ, accusing the Florida
government of claiming “the power to change the definition of
ordinary words.” 

Florida law requires those who sell skim milk—a process that
necessarily means removing a lot of the milk’s natural nutrients—to
artificially boost the beverage’s vitamin-A level until it matches
that found in whole milk. Wesselhoeft refuses to do so, citing
an anti-additive philosophy she shares with her
customers. But the state says without vitamin A enhancement, she
can’t call the product skim milk, nor will they negotiate with her
on other acceptable labeling, according to the creamery’s
lawsuit. 

“The government is censoring me from telling my customers what
is in the milk they want to buy,” said Wesslhoeft. “I have a right to label the skim
milk I want to sell as exactly what it is: pasteurized skim
milk.”

Her case, Ocheesee Creamery v. Putnam and Newton,
was filed in federal court Thursday. The case is part of IJ’s
National Food Freedom Initiative, a campaign consisting of
“property rights, economic liberty and free speech challenges to
laws that interfere with the ability of Americans to produce,
market, procure and consume the foods of their choice.” So far, the
initiative has seen success in a challenge to Oregon’s ban on raw
milk advertising; a challenge to a Miami Shores, Florida, ban on
front-yard vegetable gardening and Minnesota restrictions on
selling homemade baked goods are ongoing. 

Wesselhoeft and her husband and creamery co-owner
Paul aren’t seeking monetary damages, only the right to
“engage in truthful speech about its lawful skim milk.”