Vegan bacon makers telling porkies, say butchers

‘We think your pork lardons are indistinguishable from our veggie lardons. Would you change your recipe?’

FRENCH butchers have been accused of trying to ban vegan bacon because it tastes too realistic.

The row broke out as France prepares to outlaw plant-based foods being sold using terms such as “sausage”, “steak” or “bacon”, which traditionally apply to meat products.

INAPORC, a pork industry association, served company La Vie with formal notice for “unfair competition” for its vegan lardons.

It said they risked “deceiving consumers” into thinking they were buying meat lardons and said their advertising campaign, which urged customers to “try pork without pork” threw discredit on their industry.

La Vie took out a full back page advert in Le Parisien to hit back at the meat lobbyists.

It read: “Dear pork lobby. Thanks for the compliment. We think that your pork lardons are indistinguishable from our veggie lardons. Would you mind changing your recipe?”

This is printed on a mocked-up postcard, with the address printed on the right and room for a stamp, and an invitation for fake meat fans to send it to INAPORC.

“The pork lobby is attacking us because our veggie lardons are indistinguishable from pork lardons,” the advert read. “Help us defend ourselves, by sending them this letter.”

The labelling ban on plant-based foods is meant to prevent shoppers being confused between vegetarian and meat meals.

Critics argue that it is unnecessary and will harm a new industry that is good for the environment because it reduces meat consumption.

France’s Council of State said: “It will no longer be possible to use terms proper to sectors traditionally associated with meat to designate products not belonging to the animal world.”

The ban was delayed on July 27 to give the industry time to make appropriate changes to branding and marketing. “This law is going completely in the opposite direction of two official priorities of the French government: the fight against global warming and the reindustrialisation of France,” Nicholas Schweitzer, chief executive of La Vie, told Plant Based News.