El Court of Justice of the European Union has determined that vegetable products or smoothies and vegetable-based products, such as what has been called soy milk, cannot be marketed under the name milk. And the same thing happens with the tofu butter. Thus, the denominations "Milk" and "butter" are reserved for products of animal origin.
In Spain it will be possible to continue saying almond milk, but soy milk disappears
The court indicates that Community law reserves the names of milk, butter, cream, cheese, yogurt and chantilly to products derived from milk.
However, he mentions some exceptions for products that have traditionally been called Butter. They are used in alcoholic beverages or soupsas well as the French term rice cream (cream-rice flour).
En Spain is the case of the almond milk, because popularly it has always been called that. They would not be obliged to remove the term from the label milk. The same happens with the call coconut milk in countries like Portugal, France and the United Kingdom.
But it is clear that the days of yogurts made with soy protein, soy milk, oatmeal and hazelnut, as well as tofu butter.
The dairy interprofessional wanted to highlight the benefits of the dairy products. In addition, they asked the distribution sector not to put these products on the same shelf as the milk. As well as the manufacturers of these drinks that do not use very similar containers that lead to consumer confusion.
This sentence ends with the dispute of the German company tofutown. He used the denomination of soy milk. He based his defense by saying that he always indicated the word soy next to milk.
The German Association Against Unfair Competition (Verband Sozialer Wettbewerb) took the matter to court. Despite defending the company, the court indicated that "the fact of adding descriptive or explanatory mentions does not with certainty prevent the risk of the consumer being confused."
