A Judge Rules Vegan Butter Can Be Called Butter

On August 21, 2020, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in the Northern District of California granted Miyoko's Kitchen a preliminary injunction against the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which had ordered the company to strip words like 'butter,' 'lactose-free,' and 'cruelty-free' from its cashew-and-coconut-oil spread. The state argued the dairy-borrowed terms would mislead shoppers already looking at a package labeled vegan. Seeborg found the state's own evidence thin and sided with Miyoko's on First Amendment grounds. He did not hand the company a clean sweep: the injunction let 'hormone-free' stay off the label, since plants make their own hormones and the claim was, on its face, not really true.