STL Professor Danny Friedmann published an op-ed on pandemic prevention and innovative food in the SCMP: ‘Factory farming a greater pandemic risk than consumption of exotic animals‘.
On the same topic Professor Friedmann authored an extensive article ‘Innovative Foods with Transparent Labels that Will Have the Next Pandemic for Breakfast‘, which will be published in LAW AND ECONOMICS OF THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS, Klaus Mathis and Avishalom Tor, eds. (Springer, Forthcoming).
“Continued factory farming makes a new viral pandemic ineluctable. Plant-based and cell-cultured food (together “innovative food”) producers use animal-based food names to signal a similar function, use, and taste, but without the negative externalities of the animal-based foods in regard to health, sustainability and ethicality. In the US and EU, the market share of animal-based products is shrinking. The animal-based food producers in the US have insisted on “Truth in Labeling” measures to exclude innovative foods from using animal-based food names, even though empirical research demonstrates that it does not lead to consumer confusion.”
Professor Friedmann also wrote the editorial ‘Food labels, trade marks and how to prevent the next pandemic’ for the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice’ (Oxford University Press).
