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Business practices
European courts allow the designation "plant steak"
Publié le 21 mai 2024 - Mise à jour le 08 octobre 2024 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)
In a ruling on October 4, 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) authorized the use of terms related to deli meats or butchery to name or sell a plant-based protein product. The use of the terms ‘steak’ or ‘ham’ therefore remains possible for foods of plant origin.
Reminder
In order to avoid creating confusion among consumers, a decree of 26 February 2024 set out a list of terms whose use is prohibited for designating foods containing plant proteins.
The list included the following terms:
- Steak;
- Ham;
- Net;
- Rib;
- Escalope;
- Butcher/Butcher;
- Charcutier/Charcutière...
The order had been suspended by the Conseil d’État on April 10, 2024 to avoid “sufficiently grave and immediate” harm to the interests of potentially impacted 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.
A first decree of 29 June 2022 prohibiting the use of terms 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 CJEU for a preliminary ruling.
In its decision of 4 October 2024, the CJEU accepted the use of names from the butchery, delicatessen and fish sectors to ‘describe, market or promote’ foods containing plant proteins. For her, it is not possible to prevent producers in the agricultural sectoruse common or descriptive names such as “steak”, “sausage” or “bacon” for example.
Please note
The CJEU adds that only the use of a specific legal name may be prohibited by the legislator.