Plant-based producers can continue using meat-related terms

The European Court of Justice has ruled that manufacturers of plant-based protein foods cannot be prohibited from using terms like sausage and burger to describe their products.

Judges in the Court of Justice said that — where a legally protected name isn’t already being used — EU countries can’t stop companies that make plant-based meat alternatives from calling them steaks or sausages.

French lobby group Protéines France, which launched a legal challenge last year alongside two other associations and California’s Beyond Meat after the French government banned it from using terms like steak and ham for its plant protein products.

The ruling applies beyond France, forbidding all EU member states from trying to introduce similar bans.

A country can only stop plant-based products from using meat-based terms that already have a specific legal name, the ECJ judge ruled. Generic terms such as sausage, steak, or burger do not have strict legal definitions and so can be used to describe vegan food.

Lobbyists for the meat sector and governments attempting to restrict the use of meaty names had argued that consumers could be confused by their use on plant-based products.

But the ECJ said that consumers are already sufficiently protected from being misled by the use of meaty names on vegan food by EU law. However, if a food label or marketing is found to be misleading, member states can take action accordingly.

The ECJ’s ruling also aims to protect the “harmonisation” of the EU single market. Some countries disallowing plant-based food from using meat terms would have made it difficult for them to be sold across borders.

“We welcome the clarity given by the European Court of Justice in this judgement,” Jasmijn de Boo, Global CEO of ProVeg International, said in a statement. “We now hope that the French court will take to heart what has been said about the disruption that a ban on ‘meaty’ names for plant-based food will cause and dismiss the restriction accordingly.”

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