France wanted to ban meaty terms like “veggie burger” and “vegan bacon.” But the European Union’s high court disagreed and tossed out the law.
(CN) — Europe’s high court threw out an attempt by France to ban the use of terms like “veggie steak” and “vegan pork fat,” giving a boost to Europe’s burgeoning plant-based meat makers.
The European Court of Justice said the use of meat terms to describe plant-based meat alternatives does not mislead consumers and it called France’s 2021 decree unlawful because it was banning the use of meat terms that had not been defined in law.
In other words, France can’t ban a “veggie steak” because it hadn’t legally defined what a steak is — or for that matter, what pork, filets or sausages are, legally speaking.
“Where no legal name has been adopted, a member state may not prohibit the use of terms traditionally associated with products of animal origin to designate a product containing vegetable proteins,” the court said in a statement. The ruling was not immediately available in English.
Protéines France, a lobby group, the European Vegetarian Union, the Vegetarian Association of France and Beyond Meat Inc., a plant-based food producer, challenged the French decree.
“This is an especially big” court win, said Rafael Pinto, a policy manager for European Vegetarian Union, in a telephone interview.
He said France passed its decree after an effort to impose an EU-wide ban was defeated in the European Parliament in 2021.
With this ruling, similar bans under consideration in Italy and Hungary won’t pass muster, he said.
Conservative and far-right forces in Europe are pushing to curb the sale of plant-based meat alternatives and novel meats cultivated in laboratories. They depict these food innovations as a threat to traditional culture and farmers.
Still, the court’s ruling leaves open another possibility: Governments may attempt to set into law definitions over what is and isn’t meat.
Pinto doubted such a tactic would work due to the sheer difficulty to define what is a meat product in Europe, a multilingual continent with such a rich and varied history of meat making.
“Defining meat and meat terms is extremely, extremely difficult,” he said.
“A sausage in France might not be the same as a sausage in Germany,” he said. “This will mean that even for meat products, if they go ahead with these bans, we might have on the market meat products being sold under different names.”
However, he noted there is precedent in Europe for defining a food product. Since the 1980s, Europe has had a clear definition for what milk is and alternatives, such as milk-like soy and rice drinks, cannot use the term “milk” on their labels.
“Milk is protected,” he said. “So, we say a soy drink, an almond drink.”
The court also dismissed arguments that plant-based meat products mislead consumers by making them think they are eating animal-based meat. It said EU label rules ensure consumers know what they are buying.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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