Burger off! Meat lobby strikes back at veggies
French bill bans misleading marketing
PARIS • The French can say adieu to “le veggie burger” and au revoir to soya steaks after their parliament banned the use of meaty sounding names for vegetable-based substitutes because they mislead consumers.
In what is seen as a victory for France’s powerful meat lobby, the new bill adopted on Thursday will make it illegal for vegetarian food producers to use “steak,” “merguez,” “bacon” or “sausage” — or any other meat-related expression — to describe food that is not partly or wholly composed of meat.
Even vegetarian products promising to have a “bacon taste” will be out of bounds.
“It is important to fight against false claims,” said Jean-Baptiste Moreau, a cattle farmer and MP for La Republique en Marche (LREM) party, who proposed the law.
In a reaction on Twitter, he said: “Our products must be designated correctly: the terms of #cheese or #steak will be reserved for products of animal origin.”
Moreau has argued that current labelling confuses consumers who may wrongly believe they are eating pure, high-quality meat instead of a meat-and-soy combination, or a wholly vegetarian product.
The text stipulates that no food products containing a “significant part of vegetable-based matter” can be presented as meat.
It points out that a mixture of “meat and vegetable-based products, like soya, which is very profitable for the producer compared to a pure meat beef steak, can be marketed in a way that gives the consumer the impression he is consuming meat only.”
It denounced the “totally paradoxical” practice of presenting vegan products as having a “bacon taste” or being a “sausage substitute.” The difference, it said, must be spelled out.
The change, which was tabled in the form of an amendment to a food and agriculture bill, will also apply to vegetarian or vegan products marketed as dairy alternatives.
It comes a year after the European Court of Justice ruled that dairy-related terms, such as “milk,” “cream,” “chantilly” and “cheese,” are only allowed to be used on products made with real animal milk.
The debate comes after the Marks & Spencer store caused controversy in the U.K. for selling “cauliflower steak,” a slice of grilled cauliflower with herbs, for £2 ($3.50) earlier this year.
One Twitter commentator noted that the mark-up was outrageous as “a cauliflower costs about 69p ($1.20) from a local veg shop.”
“It is just patronizing to suggest a cauliflower is a satisfactory substitute for a steak,” wrote a blogger. “Let’s face it, a white broccoli covered in salt and pepper and griddled to within an inch of its life, hasn’t got a patch on a medium rare rump with a side of peppercorn sauce, has it?”
PATRONIZING TO SUGGEST CAULIFLOWER SUBSTITUTE FOR A STEAK.