Plant-Based Labeling: Australia’s traditional meat and dairy sector rails against labeling and imagery use

Those in favor of the use of these terms for plant-based products argued that the terms were more of functional descriptors and already showing in the market today to not have led to any consumer confusion.

PEARLY NEO: The Australian government’s public inquiry into plant-based product labelling has drawn heated debate over the use of terms and livestock images linked to traditional animal meat. At present, the local plant-based industry uses traditionally meat-related terms such as ‘beef’, ‘meat’, ‘burgers’ and ‘sausages’ to describe products made with plant-based proteins, but the Australian Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee recently opened an inquiry to seek public opinion on reforming regulations.

“[This inquiry will take] specific account of the potential impairment of Australian meat category brand investment from the appropriation of product labelling by [plant-based products], the health implications, the immediate and long-term social and economic impacts, the implications for other Australian animal products and any related matters,”​ said the committee.

Those in support of a regulatory reform are mostly dairy and meat industry representatives worried about the impact that using nomenclature from their industries would have, whereas alternative protein producers and consumers are unsurprisingly against such a reform…

Submissions in favour of the use of these terms for plant-based products argued that the terms were more of functional descriptors and already showing in the market today to not have led to any consumer confusion. One of these was World Animal Protection Australia, which made a crucial point in their submission that potential health implications should not be made part of the decision to allow or disallow the nomenclature, as nutritional labelling regulations are already in place to address these.

“The potential health implications [should] not be a factor in determining whether plant-based products can use [the meat-related] terms as Australia already has stringent requirements in place ensuring that products list their ingredients and, further, that they display the health star rating associated with that product,”​ said Executive Director Simone Clarke.

“This already ensures consumers are fully informed on what the product contains and whether it is a ‘healthy’ option. The term ‘sausage’ does not connote a particular nutritional standard or value in and of itself [so] allowing products to be labelled as, ‘plant-based sausages’ or similar, would not mislead consumers as to their nutritional value”…

The senate committee will deliberate all submissions and present its report on the matter before the end of February 2022. In Europe, legislation is in place such that plant-based meat is able to label products with traditional meat terms but plant-based dairy is not. Such legislation is also present in the United States, but varies widely across different states. SOURCE…

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