It looks like Julianne Malveaux is going to have to expand her complaint against the labeling of milk to a whole new spate of products, including yogurt. It may be that the whole scope of items coming from the dairy industry is going to be affected.
Here’s the label off a yogurt container that I ate out of last week:
Malveaux is concerned that this kind of labeling, which she argues deceives the consumer into thinking that the product approximates “organic” certification, makes people spend extra money uselessly.
Now it so happens that Stonyfield Yogurt is also USDA Organic, as certified by a little logo on the side of the container (while Land O’Lakes milk is not certified organic). But despite that fact, the fact that the yogurt is organic is not the information that the label on the top is touting. It’s proclaiming the virtue of having added no artificial hormones to the cows.
Is Malveaux right about the morality of labeling something “No rBST added”? Does her claim only apply if the item isn’t organic?
Let’s hear from some marketing professionals. Do marketers have an obligation only to include information on their labels that an average consumer might find relevant?
Is the fact that rBST has not been added to cows producing particular dairy products a relevant piece of datum for the consumer? And if it’s not relevant, then why do “organic regulations prohibit the use of antibiotics and synthetic growth hormones”?
Perhaps it should be up to the consumer to decide the relevance. Just a thought.