Miles

Should a mixture of vegetable fat and milk substitutes be referred to as “Chocolate”? The “food” industry has filed a “Citizen Petition” (a strange term since all of the proponents are industry/lobbying groups and not citizens per se) with the FDA to do just. (See the LA Times 4/14/07 and the FDA’s files for docket 2007P-0085). A couple of chocolate manufacturers — See’s Candies Inc. and Guittard Chocolate Co. — are opposing the effort and Guittard has established a website (dontmesswithourchocolate.com) to help interested individuals weave through the FDA site and comment before the deadline (4/25/07). I’m never sure how effective my single voice is when lobbying a bureaucracy, I dropped a note to the following members of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association (CMA):

• The Hershey Company (contact)
• Masterfoods USA, a Mars, Incorporated Company (contact)
• Nestle Chocolate & Confections (contact)
• World’s Finest Chocolate, Inc. (contact)
• Cargill Cocoa and Chocolate (contact)
• ADM Cocoa (contact w/ a broken form)
• The Blommer Chocolate Company (contact)

(The LA Times reports that the CMA is a proponent of the proposed changes, but you’d never know from their website.)