After France prohibited calling “steak” or “sausage” to a plant product so as not to create confusion among consumersthis Friday at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the decision the French authorities.
For the Court, in the absence of adopting a specific legal name for certain foodstuffs, a Member State cannot prohibit the use of “usual” terms.
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“A Member State could not prevent, by means of a general and abstract prohibition, producers of foodstuffs based on vegetable proteins” from using “usual names or descriptive names,” he added.
After the vote on a law in 2020, the government published two decrees to respond to a long-standing claim by members of the animal sector, because terms such as “vegetable ham”, “vegan sausage” and “vegetarian bacon” could create confusion among consumers.
For this reason, France prohibited the use of meat terms in plant products, so that consumers would only buy 100% animal meat and not meat with a plant product.
These two texts, adopted in June 2022 and then in February 2024, were quickly questioned by members of the vegetarian and vegan products sector.
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“The French Council of State must adopt a final decision,” stressed a spokesperson for the European Commission on Friday, questioned by the press in Brussels.
Europe, in its regulation on consumer information, authorizes the naming of plant products with terms commonly used for animal meat.
EAM