Advocate-General recommends French Court to ditch “veggie burger ban”

The “veggie burger ban” case continues in France with another court hearing. The Advocate-General recommended dropping the ban on plant-based food names and allowing meat-like terms to be used on the label.

Last year, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the French government’s attempt to ban meaty names for plant-based foods is not allowed under EU law unless particular conditions are met.

This case centers around whether meat-like words, including “entrecôte,” “ham,” “bacon,” “steak,” and “filet,” should be prohibited from use in commercialized meat alternatives. The French government claims this should be so because these types of names are misleading and cause consumer confusion. 

The government would first need to come up with legal definitions for meat products and the ban could only apply to products produced in France. 

The case was then sent back to the French Court, the Conseil d’Etat, where a final hearing took place on Friday January 17.

An Advocate-General is responsible for assisting the Court and presenting an opinion on the cases with complete impartiality and independence, notes Rafael Pinto, policy manager at the European Vegetarian Union.

In its final recommendations on Friday, the Advocate-General called for the cancellation of both French decrees set to ban the denominations for plant-based products, stating that such bans are not compatible with EU law, namely Regulation 1169/2011 known and Food Information to Consumers. 

“This ban is clearly an attack on the plant-based industry and plant-based consumers. It is a way to appease long-standing lobbies and prevent growth of alternatives. It is a textbook tactic of delay, distract, derail. The reason for these bans being proposed is to try and convince consumers that these alternatives are not “natural” or “healthy” when in reality data shows they can be healthier and are certainly more sustainable,” Rafael Pinto tells Food Ingredients First.

“There’s already a significant amount of EU-wide and member-state data showing consumers are not buying these alternatives by mistake and can distinguish the plant- and animal-based products. The argument of consumer protection is used as a cover up to simply try to push consumers away from plant-based foods.”

Politicizing plant-based food 

The position further argues that the decrees are unfit for purpose and recommends that the government pay the legal fees. Pinto flags that this would be “a landslide victory for plant-based foods.”

The ruling is expected in the weeks ahead.

“We welcome the position of the Advocate-General to fully stop these decrees and hope the final ruling follows suit,” Pinto continues.

“This is the right decision for consumer protection and to safeguard the integrity and competitiveness of the EU market.” These denominations’ ban attempts do nothing but confuse consumers and hinder healthier and more sustainable diets as well as the EU economy.”

“It is uncertain whether the French judges will follow this reasoning. However, we believe this is the natural conclusion given the  previous decision of the European Court of Justice.”