Draft guidelines from Trading Standards show its intent to prohibit vegan brands from using “misspelling[s], homophonic words or non-alphabet symbols” to refer to dairy terms.

The changes will hinder a growing market. Trading Standards should not publish these guidelines and allow plant-based brands to continue to use dairy-related terms

The plant-based food and drink industry generates hundreds of millions of pounds of revenue each year and is a dynamic product innovator in the UK economy.

These guidelines would prevent brands from continuing to use terms such as “mylk”, “sheese” and “b+tter” that they have used for years to describe their products.

There is no evidence of consumer confusion on this front, so the changes would achieve little other than adding costs to an industry already battling rising prices.