FDA warns Hampton Creek Foods over “misbranding”

The FDA has issued a warning to Hampton Creek Foods for its product “Just Mayo”. It managed to create an ingredient that acts like and egg and tastes like it out of Canadian yellow peas. At least not according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Mayo is a term which has been used as slang for mayonnaise for a while now. The FDA notice also said that Hampton Creek’s claims about Just Mayo being cholesterol-free are “unauthorized”, and that its nutrition labels do not have the required footnotes.

The letter from the FDA noted that the Just Mayo contains ingredients that are not permitted by the standard of identity for mayonnaise, including modified food starch, pea protein and beta-carotene.

The FDA also said the product name, label and website lead consumers to believe that Just Mayo is real mayonnaise – which must, by law, contain eggs – when in fact it’s dairy free.

The problem, in other words, is not that Hampton Creek Foods is offering an alternative to traditional mayonnaise but that it is marketing it as indiscernible from the conventional option. “I can definitely see how it’s a bit misleading”.

“We built the company to try to really penetrate the places where better-for-you food hasn’t gone before, and that means right in the condiment aisle of Wal-Mart”, Tetrick told. But the company’s venture into the market for America’s best-selling condiment, mayonnaise, has at times hit some snags.

As per the US FDA, the Mayo sold by Hampton’s Creek isn’t mayonnaise since it doesn’t contain any egg. The company planned to introduce the product to Walmart and Target customers as well this fall.

Unilever dropped the suit in December to allow the startup to work with industry groups and regulators to fix the label.

Hampton Creek, which is backed by high-profile investors including Bill Gates, Li Ka-Shing, and Vinod Khosla, was scrutinized earlier this month for its management practices after anonymous ex-employees aired their complaints with Business Insider.

The company has 15 days to respond to the letter.