Wisconsin used to regulate the color of margarine. The dairy industry wanted to reduce the demand for it. From what I've been told there was a time when you bought white margarine, but it came with yellow food coloring that you could mix into it if you wanted to make your margarine look like butter. - - Bill Dickens
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/31/02 17:00 PM >>> Armchairs, This is from the latest economist issue: Margarine is regulated to be whit color in Quebec.... Can you think of an American example that can top this? Quebec's silly business regulations Low-fat spat Mar 28th 2002 | MONTREAL >From The Economist print edition Margarine of any colour, as long as it's white EUROPE is famous for its plethora of consumer-coddling business regulations. Silly rules have also taken hold in that little piece of Europe in North America, French-speaking Quebec. One local law, for instance, limits large supermarkets to four employees on Sunday, the idea being to promote small stores (whose prices are higher than the supermarkets'). But that looks positively sensible compared with Quebec's rules concerning what you spread on your toast. Margarine is yellow in every Canadian province except Quebec, where it is its natural colour, white. It is against the law to sell yellow margarine because, says the Quebec government, people might be fooled into thinking it is butter. Who could be behind such a thoughtful rule? Step forward Quebec's dairy industry, which is out to protect butter from the, er, spread of margarine. While Quebec has only 24% of Canada's people, it is home to 38% of its dairy cows. Among those who find the law unpalatable is Unilever, a consumer-goods giant that has 60% of the local margarine market. In 1997, it challengedthe ruling by importing some of the illegal yellow stuff to a supermarket in Alma, a remote town north of Quebec City and home to the then premier, Lucien Bouchard. The yellow margarine was seized. Unilever sued, arguing that the ban violates international laws, including the North American Free-Trade Agreement, which is popular in Quebec. This week, the case went before the Court of Appeal, but a ruling could be months away. Unilever says the ban is costly, and points out that the dairy industry dyes butter to give it the same colour all year round. But Quebec's government is standing by its colour discrimination. Even the name suggests white, not yellow, say officials: margarine, invented by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès in France in 1869, is named after the Greek word for pearl.
