US: Real rice prevails, right rice mark canceled

Published 2024년 3월 4일

Tridge summary

USA Rice, representing the U.S. rice industry, has been campaigning against the mislabeling of processed vegetables shaped like rice as 'rice'. The industry has requested a 'standard of identity' from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to define what constitutes rice and has asked manufacturers to label their products as 'riced' instead of 'rice'. Recently, USA Rice filed a petition with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to cancel the trademark registration of a brand named 'RightRice', claiming it was misleading. The TTAB approved the petition, requiring RightRice to alter its packaging and marketing.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

ARLINGTON, VA – Ever since rice pretenders – rice-shaped processed vegetables – emerged on the scene, the U.S. rice industry has been trying to set the record straight with consumers, retailers, manufacturers, policymakers, and lawmakers to avoid marketplace confusion. “We’ve said from the beginning, ‘rice is a grain, not a shape,’” said Robbie Trahan, a Louisiana rice miller and chair of the USA Rice Domestic Promotion Committee. “If someone wants to eat cauliflower crumbles, that’s fine. But don’t call it ‘rice.’ It isn’t.” Trahan said the industry sought a “standard of identity” (SOI) from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration that would quite deliberately define what is and what is not rice. The agency, which has SOIs for a host of foods from cherry pie to white bread, did not act, even though there is an international standard from the United Nations and World Health Organization that says: “Rice is whole and broken kernels obtained from the species Oryza sativa L.” Trahan ...

Source: USA Rice Daily