Really, the disqualification is probably better publicity than winning the award itself. If someone told me some vegan cheese won a “Good Food” award, I would assume it was related to eco- and social-consciousness. Learning that it was so delicious that the dairy industry schemed to take away the award tells me they’re afraid of the competition.
When Seiko beat the Swiss at their own mechanical watch accuracy competitions, they decided to cancel the long running prestigious competition entirely instead of make a better watch.
Capitalism breeds innovation!
Same with Japanese Scotch whiskeys absolutely running the table on ones from Scotland in competitions.
“Our cheese is so good they had to disqualify us” would be my new slogan so fast.
Wasnt that what they did with monty python’s holy grial when it was banned in norway*?
Big Milk will not accept any threat to their cash cow! This is outrages!
If only I could buy it.
Removed by mod
I just wanna try this cheese.
That’s how capitalism works
It was disqualified for having an ingredient that was not GRAS(generally regarded as safe). Even GRAS is a pretty low bar for food safety.
Here are more details (and more context is in the article):
"Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).
The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.
“It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php
Let me see if I get this right: they get disqualified for containing an ingredient that hasn’t been certified as edible (kokum butter) and is usually used in cosmetics, and there is no evidence of Big Cheese being the reason for the disqualification, other than the owner of the company saying it.
But it is still Big Cheese’ fault?
Here are more details (and more context is in the article):
"Someone had tipped off the foundation on something that disqualified Climax, Good Food Foundation Executive Director Sarah Weiner told the Washington Post. The complaint potentially arose from Climax’s use of the ingredient kokum butter, which has not been designated as GRAS (generally regarded as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration. However, Zahn told the Washington Post that the company has replaced the ingredient with cocoa butter, which was the version he said he submitted for the awards (although Weiner contests this).
The Good Food Awards also didn’t require GRAS certification for all ingredients back when contestants submitted their products — rather, the foundation added this to the rules later on. Zahn claims the Good Food Foundation never reached out to Climax to inform the company of the new requirement, although Weiner told the Washington Post it attempted to. SFGATE could not reach the Good Food Foundation for comment in time for publication.
“It would have been very easy for them to reach out to us and tell us about the new requirements,” Zahn told SFGATE. “… The thing that’s upsetting to me is that they were kind of unprofessional by changing the rules a week before the event.”"
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/berkeley-vegan-cheese-good-food-awards-19431532.php
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Gift link for access: https://wapo.st/3xQCcYX
There are innumerable horror stories from cottage vendors bumping up against the money and strict gatekeeping of the nationally established conglomerates. This was in the US, but I know Canada also has, new, laws on the books to specifically prevent plant based cheeses from referring to their product as “cheese,” despite being the exact same process and a final product that you wouldn’t know side by side to the dairy version.
I’m not a vegan, but this is the just same ole regulatory capture bullshit that we’re seeing w ev cars, good imported rum, net neutrality and everything else
Kokum butter is edible and occasionally used to make chocolates and other confections.
