It’s even worse than that. The makers aren’t even sure what was in their product to begin with.
Zahn says the kokum butter shouldn’t be an issue anyway: The company has since replaced it with cocoa butter, which does have GRAS certification. Initially, he told the Post the cocoa butter version was what he submitted for the awards, but after this story was published he said he determined that it was in fact the kokum butter version. (According to Weiner, Climax submitted an ingredient list that included kokum.)
So it might have been labeled with having kokum butter, it might not. Who knows? Seems to depends what answer is needed at the time.
Also,
Climax, it turns out, wasn’t just a finalist — it was set to win the award, a fact that all parties are asked to keep confidential until the official ceremony in Portland, Ore., but was revealed in an email the foundation sent to Climax in January.
If I’m reading this correctly, out of all the contestants, only they knew they won. Makes it a further stretch that it was a dairy company that “out” them as they wouldn’t have known that the vegan cheese won.
My guess for the change about GRAS was it most likely was assumed everyone would only submit GRAS items, and since someone broke that non-spoken rule then they had to make it a clarified rule. It is something you’d just assume everyone made sure their food was most or less FDA approved (which is a logical assumption).
The Washington Post article is much clearer about this whole issue (which is linked to in this badly written Boingbonk article.)