Tech-food startup can’t use the word “mayo” in its eggless “Just Mayo”

"The term 'mayo' in the product names and the image of an egg may be misleading."

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[lewax00]

Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

 

[Muon]

Note the emphasis on "mayo."

Just, real, natural, 100%: all descriptive and unregulated terms.

 

[Alyeska]

It’s one thing to advertise yourself as Vegan Burger. You use a term that is familiar but accurately describe your product. It’s something else to call your product Just Burger while featuring the silhouette of a cow.

This is a proper ruling. Words have meaning and it’s important that they maintain their meaning for truth in advertising and so that customers can make decision with accurate and reliable information.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

lewax00[/url]":27q0mf7p]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

Me too. Via Good Eats, there are standards for custard, ice cream, sherbet, and other stuff. Some of it is actually useful, surprisingly.

 

[Pocky Is God]

Damn hippies. Get your plant juice out of my Mayonnaise!

 

[potato44819]

Does it actually taste good, though?

 

[JAHA]

 

[11001001]

Why did they think "Just Mayo" was a good product name? As someone with an egg allergy, I cannot eat regular mayonnaise. So I am a perfect target consumer for their product... except for the fact that I am not going anywhere near something that says "Just Mayo" because of my allergy.

With their marketing, they are rejecting potentially loyal customers in favor of what? Tricking people into not eating eggs?

If I see this in the store sometime, maybe I'll pick up a jar. Maybe I'll pay with "just cash".

 

[BradleyUffner]

"Modified Food Starch" doesn't really sound all that "Natural" to me.

 

[AndreaFaulds]

lewax00[/url]":1pyldkjw]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

There's legal standards as to what all kinds of foods are in the US and EU! It reduces ambiguity for consumers and producers, and prevents people putting things under misleading names.

 

[nafhan]

vassago[/url]":23drlax8]What a strange thing to take issue with.
While egg replacers are great, I'm still rather confused as to why vegans/vegetarians want food that emulates meat and egg (especially mayo, yuck), other than for the binding property of egg for baking and such. And I say this as near-vegan (I still eat cheese sometimes hence not being fully vegan).

My guess: eggs and meat taste good. Vegans aren't necessarily against things that taste good. Some of them are specifically against harming animals (or more often I've noticed, the perception of harming animals).

Related: there is an ice cream place near me that had to stop calling their stuff "custard" because it had the wrong ratio of eggs (not quite enough), but they changed the law recently, and now their ice cream is custard, again. Food laws are weird and complicated!

 

[Thorzdad]

lewax00[/url]":3be9hrt8]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

It may seem silly, but a case like this is why standards for foods exist. The standards establish a minimum base which must be met in order to call your product mayo, ketchup, beer, etc. This is why you see things like "processed cheese food" or "frozen dairy dessert" instead of "cheese" or "ice cream".

The Just Mayo people were just idiots to go down the route they did with the naming and packaging. It's probably a good product, and they should have named it some more obvious in order to hit the target audience.

 

[Dilbert]

Modern Major General Thanatos[/url]":1l135jps]Does it actually taste good, though?

Don't know about this product. I've tried something called veganaise (SP?), and a vegan Daiya cheese, and vegan cream cheese. They tasted damn good. Like anything some dairy free substitutes are crap. Some are excellent.

 

[ProphetM]

puppies[/url]":lhx6jdjc]This reminds me of when Taco Bell got in trouble from the USDA for calling what they serve "beef".

The main difference in this current case is that it actually happened in real life.

 

[Eldorito]

A San Francisco food-tech startup...

I'm genuinely curious, they're one of a zillion vegan/vegetarian food companies that take normal food and replace the animal component (in this case, it looks like pea protein is replacing the egg). What makes it "food-tech"? Or does it simply mean "popular online"?

I figured they were growing a protein, steak in a lab style.

 

[glitchtrack]

Beyond the fact that this is, indeed, not actual mayonnaise and, contrary to expectations, contains no egg, this seems to be a very strange choice of name and logo for them in any case. If I were a vegan looking for eggless products, I would probably pass this one up on sight. If the whole point of your product is that it doesn't have eggs in it, why would you want to mislead the consumer into thinking it did contain eggs?

 

[Schizoid]

There are other egg-free products that call themselves either mayonnaise or mayo.

http://earthbalancenatural.com/product/olive-oil-mayo/

http://www.plamilfoods.co.uk/egg-free-mayo/

http://www.waldenfarms.com/products/mayo.html

 

[ProphetM]

Is "I Can't Believe It's Not Mayo" already taken?

 

[Rosyna]

sprockkets[/url]":3e3cj0sr]

lewax00[/url]":3e3cj0sr]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

Me too. Via Good Eats, there are standards for custard, ice cream, sherbet, and other stuff. Some of it is actually useful, surprisingly.

And "gelato" in the US is frozen dairy product not good enough to be called "ice cream".

Similar rules exist for chocolate.

 

[Dputiger]

puppies[/url]":2m7qivif]This reminds me of when Taco Bell got in trouble from the USDA for calling what they serve "beef".

I can't find any evidence that Taco Bell was censured by the USDA. It was sued by an Alabama law firm in a bogus class action lawsuit. The "lean, finely textured beef" that got called "pink slime" in news reports is 100% meat. It got smeared because watching how the sausage gets made is disgusting, but it's essentially what you end up with when you spin meat in a centrifuge and then treat it with ammonia to kill bacteria (a common, common practice).

I don't know how things resolved, but the entire issue got blown far out of proportion.

 

[Darkness1231]

lewax00[/url]":13tx54s2]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

There was a dust-up several years back when a Mayonnaise Light was introduced. Then I learned that not only must the name be used with the correct product it turns out that (back then, at least) the Light version couldn't be called Mayonnaise because it had less of the required ingredients. Very funny. Healthier, less calories but not actually Mayo.

 

[Zeroedout]

If this standard didn't exist, that corn syrup dressing on the right would be called "mayo" as well. Taste them side by side and tell me one isn't a gross cheap imitation.

That said, one would have to be kinda crazy to confuse vegan mayo as anything close to the real thing. Makes sense though, just goofily combine words like the competition, such as Vegannaise.

 

[Dputiger]

Schizoid[/url]":1vmspao9]There are other egg-free products that call themselves either mayonnaise or mayo.

http://earthbalancenatural.com/product/olive-oil-mayo/

http://www.plamilfoods.co.uk/egg-free-mayo/

http://www.waldenfarms.com/products/mayo.html

In at least two of those cases, the label says quite prominently that the product is either egg-free or made with olive oil. That may be sufficient to allow use of the word "mayo" in the same way that you can advertise a "Veggie Burger."

Walden is trickier. I can only see the front, but the label does identify the product as calorie, fat, and sugar-free. Perhaps those are also considered important modifiers?

 

[lewax00]

lewax00[/url]":2yk3ox0w]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

It may seem silly, but a case like this is why standards for foods exist. The standards establish a minimum base which must be met in order to call your product mayo, ketchup, beer, etc. This is why you see things like "processed cheese food" or "frozen dairy dessert" instead of "cheese" or "ice cream".

The Just Mayo people were just idiots to go down the route they did with the naming and packaging. It's probably a good product, and they should have named it some more obvious in order to hit the target audience.

I used to joke with my friends about "frozen dairy dessert" in the freezers at the supermarket...and now I know why they call it that. I am actually learning a lot today (also the fact that flamethrowers are not firearms, despite what the word "firearm" implies).

 

[Lonyo]

lewax00[/url]":26v77kz5]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

I bet you haven't read the 45 page (in pdf pages) guidelines for the Lettuce and Leafy Greens supply chain either.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/Guida ... 169008.pdf

 

[Schizoid]

lewax00[/url]":3dpezkj8]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

Ketchup, too.

It is FDA that regulates ketchup, and ketchup is a standardized food. Official definition here.

 

[Akrovah]

They should have just added "dressing" to the end. That's how Best Foods gets away with thier egg free canola oil based mayonnaise substitute (which actualy tastes pretty good. I can't tell the difference, but my high cholesterol can).

http://www.bestfoods.com/product/detail ... e-dressing

 

[ProphetM]

Schizoid[/url]":3tbzwm8c]There are other egg-free products that call themselves either mayonnaise or mayo.

http://earthbalancenatural.com/product/olive-oil-mayo/

http://www.plamilfoods.co.uk/egg-free-mayo/

http://www.waldenfarms.com/products/mayo.html

The first item uses "MindfulMayo" as a single word so that's what probably gets it off, along with "dressing & sandwich spread" underneath that on the label, much like Miracle Whip.

The second item is in the UK, where the rules/definition may be different.

The third item doesn't seem to say that it doesn't contain eggs, but I don't know.

 

[Schizoid]

ProphetM[/url]":2dfq0k4l]Is "I Can't Believe It's Not Mayo" already taken?

Two names I like:

Vegannaise

Nayonaise

 

[Muon]

Modern Major General Thanatos[/url]":2z1k7y6w]Does it actually taste good, though?

I've used it before to make some pretty good tuna salad. It's got a weird aftertaste of peas (the "food starch" it's made from) that takes some getting used to though.

 

[Brevitic]

It's called "Just Mayo" because the idea is to suggest to you that other products are not "Just Mayo" and are full of icky things you shouldn't want to eat because it's not the true and full noble organic only no GMO stuff.

/s

Industrialized organic meets legalese terms.

 

[Fritzr]

vassago[/url]":2s8wjemx]What a strange thing to take issue with.
While egg replacers are great, I'm still rather confused as to why vegans/vegetarians want food that emulates meat and egg (especially mayo, yuck), other than for the binding property of egg for baking and such. And I say this as near-vegan (I still eat cheese sometimes hence not being fully vegan).

They are usually targeting people who want to convert to the alternate diet without abandoning their familiar foods. Seventh Day Adventist stores stock a large number of vegetarian 'meat' products for this reason.

Then there is a large demand from vegans who would like to try popular foods that ordinarily include animal products, so there is also a large market for anyone who can create a reasonable vegetarian version of these popular foods. Pie crust that does not use animal shortening is a good example of this drive to creativity.

In the words of Vegans themselves while nominating what they think should be the Top 10
http://www.carpevegan.com/?p=1013

Want to try abalone, but you are committed to being vegan?

You're covered.

Want to serve Viennese sausage hors-d'œuvres to vegetarian guests?

You're covered.

I picked these two images from Asian ads, but there are dozens, if not hundreds of US branded vegan meat substitutes.

 

[Zen00]

Damn straight. And I don't want to be seeing none of you chocolate companies out there trying to pass off your vegetable oil based mocolate as chocolate none either. Cocoa butter for life!

 

[alanmies]

AndreaFaulds[/url]":3tznugtn]

lewax00[/url]":3tznugtn]Today I learned there is an official legal standard for mayonnaise.

There's legal standards as to what all kinds of foods are in the US and EU! It reduces ambiguity for consumers and producers, and prevents people putting things under misleading names.

It can lead to some absurd situations though. For example here in .fi (this is due to some EU regulation I assume - and for the record, I think the union is a good thing, but the bureaucracy can get silly at times) one can't sell soy milk or rice milk. It is "soy milk drink" (direct translation, there might be a more official term). Any chance of consumer confusion? None. Yet it must be labelled as such.

 

[Schizoid]

ProphetM[/url]":19c7ye8b]

Schizoid[/url]":19c7ye8b]There are other egg-free products that call themselves either mayonnaise or mayo.

http://earthbalancenatural.com/product/olive-oil-mayo/

http://www.plamilfoods.co.uk/egg-free-mayo/

http://www.waldenfarms.com/products/mayo.html

The first item uses "MindfulMayo" as a single word so that's what probably gets it off, along with "dressing & sandwich spread" underneath that on the label, much like Miracle Whip.

The second item is in the UK, where the rules/definition may be different.

The third item doesn't seem to say that it doesn't contain eggs, but I don't know.

Amazin' Mayo:

Purified water, vegetable fiber, sea salt, apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, corn starch, xanthan gum, lactic acid, beta carotene, egg flavor, mustard, lemon juice, food color, sucralose, paprika, sodium benzoate (preserve freshness).

Ingredients contains trace calories

From here: http://www.iherb.com/Walden-Farms-Amazi ... 40-g/41665