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Businesses in Arkansas will no longer be able to market their cauliflower-based rice substitute as “cauliflower rice” due to the state’s new “truth in labeling” law. Act 501 makes...
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Businesses in Arkansas will no longer be able to market their cauliflower-based rice substitute as “cauliflower rice” due to the state’s new “truth in labeling” law. Act 501 makes Arkansas one of just a handful of states (including Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota) to ban marketing food substitutes as the food they are intended to replace, and it is the only state to include protection for rice. Similar laws in other states have banned calling a product “meat” if it is not derived from livestock or poultry and “milk” if it is not dairy.
The legislation appears to be a win for Arkansas’ agriculture industry, which makes up about 13% of state GDP. Moreover, as the nation’s largest rice producer, the bill’s specific protection of rice products is sure to be received well by the almost 100,000 family owned farms statewide.
In August 2018, Missouri became the first state to pass a similar statute. By October of the same year, however, a temporary injunction had been placed against the statute pending the outcome of a federal law suit filed by The Animal Defense Fund in coalition with Tofurky, the Good Food Institute, and the ACLU of Missouri. The coalition asserts that the statute violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. Missouri Attorney General at the time, Josh Hawley, intended to defend the law.
Until further notice from the Western District Court of Missouri, cauliflower rice retailers in Arkansas will need to label their products as “riced cauliflower” – a more acceptable description according to the new statute.
It remains to be seen, however, what effects these regulations will have on food substitute producers in the state (in other states and for international manufacturers).
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