Louisiana Food Labeling Law Survives Tofurky’s Free Speech Suit

A Louisiana statute that bars misleading food labels, including those that misrepresent foods as certain meat products, is not a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of commercial free speech, the Fifth Circuit ruled Wednesday.

The Truth in Labeling of Food Products Act was passed in Louisiana in 2019 to protect consumers from misleadingly or falsely labeling certain agricultural products. A lower court found that the statute infringed on the free speech rights of food producers and declared the law unconstitutional.

The district court improperly ignored the state’s limiting construction of the act and substituted its own interpretation, the US ...