Vegetable-Based Solutions

Manufacturers of plant-based substitutes for dairy products may soon be ordered to remove from their brand names such consumer-harming factors as "homophones, asterisked characters or other wordplay." In a move worthy of those alleged by the National Johnson and his ilk against the bureaucrats of Strasbrussels, His Majesty's Government is considering a ban on the misleading information contained in I Can't Believe it's Not Butter and This is Not M*lk. Since His Majesty's Government is self-evidently not susceptible to lobbying by non-vegan profiteers, it follows that the great British onsumer is self-evidently too stupid to avoid confusing products labelled and advertised as Not A Dairy Product with actual dairy products. Not that the proposed guidelines will be entirely negative: for soya yoghurt and vegan mozzarella the free, independent and British trading standards officials have provided gratis the appetising alternatives of "soya dessert fermented with live cultures" and "vegan soft-white balls with a light cheese flavour." In what was apparently intended as reassurance, a spokesbeing for the Department for Enraging Farmers, Retailers and All stated that "there are no plans to change existing legislation in this area," as if the lack of a plan had ever made much difference.