this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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No more cordon blur: France prepares to ban vegetarian products from using meaty language

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Oh I’m sure the incredibly powerful lobby you are speaking about will be totally fine with a law dictating the way they style and display their packaging.

I don't care what they're okay with. They're okay with passing this BS law as though it's solving their fictional problem, because the actual problem is that they're losing money to alternatives people are choosing on purpose.

What I genuinely don’t understand is why vegan products are trying so hard to look like non vegan products?

For the same reason there's non-alcoholic beer. It's accepted as a social norm that creates what Warren Buffet would call a "moat" around their business, like the barbecue. If everyone else is eating burgers and hot dogs but you have a moral issue with eating meat, you can still partake. Maybe you hate that so much of our food comes from animals but you really like cheese, so you'll deal with something that gets 80% of the way there. Beyond and Impossible are two businesses that exist specifically because people care about the burger taste but would love to do so without killing a cow to get there.

Is it important for a bunch of vegetables composition to be called a steak ? If anything I would think a vegan product would want to stand out from standard meat ?

It's important that they know they're getting something that approximates a steak, and it stands out by putting the word "vegan" or "plant-based" or "vegetarian" in front of it, but this legislation hurts that.

You won’t convert to veganism people by selling them fake steaks. It doesn’t work.

I don't think it was ever their business model to get people who wanted a meat steak to buy the veggie version. But it is there for people who want to be vegetarian and would miss being able to eat a steak.