Bringing Home The (veggie) Bacon? European Parliament Rejects Proposals To Ban Terms Such As Veggie Burger

• Published date: 12 November 2020
• Subject Matter: Consumer Protection, Food, Drugs, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Consumer Law, Food and Drugs Law
• Law Firm: Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP
• Author: Mr George Frier and Joseph Fitzgibbon

On Friday 23 October the European Parliament voted to reject proposals to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that would ban terms such as "burger", "steak" and "sausage" being used to describe plant-based products.

This vote was part of a wider package of CAP reforms that were voted on by the European Parliament and are due take effect from 2022.

This was good news for medical groups, environmentalists and manufacturers of vegetarian products who argued that banning these terms would make consumers less likely to shift to a more plant based diet. They stated that this would undermine the EU's Green Deal, which aims to achieve climate neutrality across Europe within the next 30 years.

But are these terms likely to mislead consumers? The answer to that question was "yes" for some farming lobby groups that argued that using words commonly associated with meat products would confuse and mislead consumers. The European farmer's group Copa-Cogeca said that allowing the use of such terms would open a "...