Craig Marburger, president of Marburger Farm Dairy, stands in front of the bottling line at the dairy in Forward Township. "We don't have almond trees around here. Where does it come from?" Marburger said. "(Alternative milk) is not as good — doesn't have calcium, doesn't have all the nutrients." Cary Shaffer/Butler Eagle

Cary Shaffer

According to a draft labeling recommendation released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month, alternative milk products — such as almond, soy and oat milk — can continue billing themselves as “milk” to consumers.

“I mean, these other items could be ‘juice,’ but I don’t think they should be referred to as ‘milk,’” said Craig Marburger, president of Marburger Dairy Farms in Forward Township.

The FDA’s release stated its studies show Americans generally understand alternative milks are not dairy products. In spite of this, William Thiele of Thiele Dairy Farm in Jefferson Township said consumers continue to tell him they believe the products are “flavored” cow milk.

“They’re at the dairy aisle and they say, ‘Oh, I love the taste of almonds, I’m going to take an almond milk,’ when in reality they love drinking cow’s milk,” Thiele said. “That kind of comes back to us dairy farmers as there’s people buying a product that they think is milk but really isn’t.”

In an effort to curb any confusion, the FDA recommended milk alternatives “include a voluntary nutrient statement that conveys how the product compares with milk.”

“I believe our milk products have nutritional advantages over these artificial items,” Marburger said. “They’re trying to make it sound like they’re just as good as our products are — they’re just artificial.”