Meat lobbies attack veg foods

The animal production lobbies are trying to slow down the spread of plant products, despite experts calling for a reduction in meat consumption.

• One way meat producers are trying to discredit plant-based alternatives is by pushing for severe naming restrictions.
• France, South Africa and Türkiye, unfortunately, have moved in this direction.
• Despite the obstacles, the plant-based substitute sector is growing from strength to strength, meaning this is the path governments should support.

For some time now animal production lobby they try to stop the spread of vegetable products in many ways.One of these is to limit their marketing and positioning possibilities with consumers by introducing severe restrictions naming restrictions.Just think of the ban on using terms such as "milk", "butter" or "cheese" to advertise plant products, imposed in Europe since 2007.

And the more the market for vegetable products grows, the more fears and actions to counter it grow.In 2020, for example, we contributed to stopping the so-called “burger ban”, a vote that would have led to real censorship of terms such as "vegan burger" or "vegetarian sausage".Luckily, the vote of the MEPs averted the introduction of amendment 165 which would have reserved the exclusive use of words such as "steak", "sausage" or "burger" for products containing meat.

Another victory at the beginning of 2021:The European Union has voted to stop further restrictions on the naming of plant-based alternatives to milk under Amendment 171.If it had passed “dairy ban”, it would not have been possible to use terms evocative of cow's milk, such as "creamy", "does not contain lactose/milk", "milk-free" on the packaging of plant-based products alternative to milk and dairy products.

France bans terms associated with meat and fish

We knew that in the face of this flop the meat and dairy industry lobbies would not stop and would bring the same requests to national parliaments.And today unfortunately the France it is the first European nation to adopt such legislation and ban traditional terms for animal products (with the exception of the word burger).The ban, voted a few days ago, will come into force in October.

The contradiction of the law is that it will only apply to French products and not to imported ones.This is why there are those who say that it will only be counterproductive and will slow down the growth of an internal sector.And for the same reason the French meat industry wants to bring it back once again discussion in Brussels, in order to prevent the entry into the country of the much feared vegetable products with names similar to tradition.

Also South Africa and Türkiye

Unfortunately, the French one is not an isolated case, given that shortly before a similar law was also voted in South Africa.It will therefore not be possible to talk about "veg meatballs" or "chicken style strips", preventing consumers who want to choose plant-based products from having access to information on the quality of the product and its use.

In Türkiye something even worse happened instead:the Ministry of Agriculture went even further and went so far as to ban the production and sale of vegetable cheeses - therefore foods similar to cheese but veg-based.An initiative was also launched against this authoritarian and senseless decision - which will lead to the closure of some companies petition and companies and organizations are being mobilized together.

We need a change of direction

Laws like these, which aim to downsize and ghettoise the market for plant-based alternatives, go in a completely opposite direction to what we need now.Climate scientists, not least the authors of IPCC report, do nothing but clamor for a reduction in the production of meat and other animal products for the good of humanity and future generations.As well as policies that encourage a plant-based diet, rather than the other way around.

Censoring or hindering the sale of plant-based products is a way to maintain a status quo that is nothing more than an anachronistic and unsustainable system:the meat and dairy lobbies are governed by subsidies, reduced taxation and million euros of public funds intended to support the promotion of their products.

On the contrary, plant products must compete on their own two feet in an unequal battle:with naming restrictions, without subsidies, with aVAT often equal to that of luxury products and prices which, therefore, struggle to be competitive.Despite all these obstacles, the plant-based substitute sector is growing from strength to strength, meaning that this is the path of the future that governments should support.At the cost of some complaints from the lobbies.