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No more cordon blur: France tries again to ban meaty language on vegetarian products

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France prepares to ban vegetarian products from using meaty language

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    France’s long-running battle over vegan food names has escalated as the government published a decree banning meaty terms such as “steak”, “grill” or “spare ribs” being used to describe plant-based products.

    Marc Fesneau, the French agriculture minister, said the new government decree on products such as “vegan ham” or “plant-based steak” was about helping shoppers and “an issue of transparency and honesty responding to the legitimate expectations of consumers and producers”.

    More than 120 other meat-associated names such as “cooked ham”, “poultry”, “sausage”, “nugget” or “bacon” will still be authorised but only if the products do not exceed a certain amount of plant proteins, with percentages ranging between 0.5% and 6%.

    Guillaume Hannotin, a lawyer for the Proteines France organisation representing makers of vegan and vegetarian alternatives, said the term “plant-based steak” had been in use for more than 40 years.

    He told AFP that France’s new decree still contravened EU regulation on labelling for the products, which – unlike milk – lack a strict legal definition and can be referred to by terms in popular use.

    Charlotte Minvielle, of the French Green party Europe Écologie Les Verts, tweeted that the government had made a priority of “defending the meat lobby”.


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