The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has stated that France’s proposal to ban ‘meaty’ names for plant-based foods would disrupt EU harmonisation.

The preliminary ruling, published today (4 October 2024) responds to a decree brought forward by the French government earlier this year, seeking to ban the use of names such as ‘steak’ and ‘ham’ on plant-based products.

France’s Council of State (Conseil d’État) suspended the decree in April and sought guidance from the ECJ on whether the ban could go ahead, with concerns that the decree could cause ‘serious and immediate harm’ to manufacturers selling exclusively plant-based protein products in the country.

The ECJ judge ruled that such a ban could not be implemented under current conditions, stating that EU law already provides sufficient rules to protect consumers, so additional national rules of the nature that the French decree sought to introduce – determining how much vegetable protein can be in a product before it can be called by certain names – are not permitted.

It said that an EU member state could only prohibit the use of terms traditionally linked to animal-derived products for plant-based foods if the country has established a specific legal name for such products.

EU member states would have to legally define meat terms, including descriptive items such as sausage or burger, a process that industry non-profit organisation ProVeg International highlighted would cause confusion for consumers and the single market, as defining such terms depends on cultural and linguistic references.

Jasmijn de Boo, global CEO of ProVeg International, commented: “We welcome the clarity given by the European Court of Justice in this judgement. 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.”

The case against the French decree was brought by the European Vegetarian Union, the Vegetarian Association of France, Proteines France and Beyond Meat.

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