Chefs protested and producers promised to pursue a reversal following a ruling by a three-judge U.S. appellate court panel to allow enforcement of a 2004 California law banning the sale of foie gras. The law “has been idled for more than half of the time it has been on the books” and a state judge decided in 2015 that the state law wrongly interfered with federal food laws, said the Los Angeles Times.
Legislators banned the luxury food, made from the livers of specially fattened ducks and geese, but allowed seven years for producers to find a new method to produce it other than force-feeding poultry. The manager of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, based in New York state, told the Los Angeles newspaper, “We will appeal. This process may take months. Until this appeal is completed, the law and the ban are not implemented and foie gras is legal to sell and serve in California.” The next step would be to ask for a review of the ruling by a larger group of judges from the U.S. appeals court in San Francisco. “If the challengers lose again … they can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said the newspaper.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund said the unanimous ruling by the appellate panel “ensures that foie gras, a product produced by animal torture, will once again disappear from California restaurant menus.” Chef Ken Frank of La Toque French restaurant, defendant in a foie gras lawsuit filed by animal rights activists, told the Los Angeles Times that “foie gras sales are going to go back through the roof now.”