First setback for the meat industries. The Council of State validated the request of an association which requested the suspension of a decree prohibiting, from 1er October, the use of the designations “steak”, “bacon”, “sausage”, “meatball” or even “Carpaccio” for products based on vegetable proteins.
The decision, consulted on Wednesday July 27 by Agence France-Presse, is an interim decision: the highest administrative court did not rule on the merits of the case, but it recognizes the urgency of the appeal of the association Protéines France, at the origin of the request.
A reprieve “auspicious” for the association
This association, which defends vegetable protein manufacturers, had filed a motion for interim relief, considering, during the hearing held the previous Friday, that the entry into force of the decree on 1er October 2022 would not leave enough time for players in the sector to reorganize their activity, at the risk of confusing consumers and losing market share.
The General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF), for its part, had disputed the urgency of suspending, considering that the promulgation of the law in 2020 had left manufacturers enough time to take their provisions before the implementing decree of 29 June.
The organization is delighted with this reprieve “auspicious”but remains “prudent” pending a decision from the highest administrative court on the merits, said the association’s lawyer, Guillaume Hannotin. “The Council of State accepted our plea based on the impossibility for vegetable foodstuffs to leave the lexical field which comes close or far from meat”, he welcomed. Moreover, according to him, some names originally had no connection with meat, such as “steak”, which means “slice” in English, or “Carpaccio”, named after the Italian painter who made red prevail. in his paintings, recalls the lawyer.
“Are we going to have to call our bacon bits ‘little pink vegetal bits’?” »
The vegetable protein sector has long hoped that France would “reverse”especially since the European Union, which authorizes this type of name, had expressed its disapproval of the French decision.
In October 2020, the European Parliament had indeed rejected by a large majority a text aimed at prohibiting the use of terms of animal origin for plant products – except for the names “yogurt”, “cream” or “cheese”. applied to products without animal milk. With the publication of this decree at the end of June, France became the only country in the European Union to go against this decision.
The DGCCRF had invited the manufacturers of imitation meat to “develop their own terminology”considering that the products concerned did not meet, despite use, the criteria for being called “steak” or “nuggets”. “Are we going to have to call our bacon bits ‘little pink vegetal bits’?” It’s going to be complicated “quipped Nicolas Schweitzer, founder of the French start-up La Vie, who underlined the paradox of this decree with the government’s stated ambition to strengthen the vegetable protein sector.
Proteins France for its part denounced a “market fragmentation”products “legally manufactured or marketed in another Member State of the European Union or in Turkey” able to keep their name ” sausage “ Where “skewer” plant in the French departments.