Business practices

Suspension of the ban on the use of the terms steak, ham or escalope for plant products

Publié le 21 mai 2024 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

In an interim ruling on April 10, 2024, the State Council again suspended the prohibition on using terms related to delicatessen or butchery to name a plant-based protein product. The use of the terms ‘steak’ or ‘ham’ therefore remains possible for foods of plant origin.

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Image 1Crédits: M.studio - stock.adobe.com

A decree of 26 February 2024 set out a list of terms the use of which is prohibited for designating foods containing plant proteins. The purpose of this Order is to avoid creating confusion among consumers.

This list includes the following terms:

  • Steak;
  • Ham;
  • Net;
  • Rib;
  • Escalope;
  • Butcher/Butcher;
  • Charcutier/Charcutière...

The order has been suspended by the Council of State on 10 April 2024.

The Council of companies, seized of the matter for interim measures and potentially affected by the new regulations, has ruled that the execution of this decree does not constitute an emergency in the public interest.

In addition, he considered that the effective date of the Order, 1er may 2024, constituted a ‘sufficiently grave and immediate’ infringement of the interests of the applicant companies. The timetable set by the decree did not allow them to adapt their trade policy to this ban. These companies were therefore likely to experience a sharp drop in their turnover.

FYI  

A first decree of 29 June 2022 prohibiting the use of designations relating to products of animal origin for foodstuffs of plant origin had also been suspended by the Council of State, which referred a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling.

So far, we are awaiting the CJEU’s response.